Foreign investors see Romania's legislative environment "more predictable"

Nearly one-third of the foreign investors in Romania (31.1%) see the legislative framework as "more predictable," the highest share since 2016, according to a survey conducted by the Foreign Investors Council (FIC) among its members.

The number of those seeing the regulatory framework as "less predictable" dropped to 22.2%, the lowest ever since the polls started being conducted in 2015.

Foreign investors' perception over the predictability of the legislative framework in Romania plunged to a minimum in March 2018, after the Social Democratic Government endorsed the emergency ordinance (OUG) 114/2017 that prompted major concerns in several key industrial sectors such as energy and telecom. At that time, the balance of negative to positive views (0% positive views) reached 90pp - while in March 2021, the balance rose to positive 9pp.

The rest of the survey's outcomes are somehow expected: the companies expect bigger business volume and turnover (after a difficult year), and they plan to invest more.

The investors expect their business to grow rather on the local market (62% of the total) than on the foreign market (36%), while overall, 60% of them expect better business over the coming 12 months. It is not an impressive share comparable to that posted in March 2019, and it suggests that many foreign investors actually saw their business shrinking significantly in 2020.

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