Most Romanian firms claiming losses caused by coronavirus are in services

The number of firms that applied for being certified as directly or indirectly hit by the coronavirus crisis under the Government’s procedures reached 7,600 as of April 9 - the fourth day after the registration procedures started.

Under the procedure, CSU certificates are issued at demand by the Government to firms in sectors directly hit by the restrictions imposed by the authorities and firms that declare that their revenues dropped as a result of the coronavirus crisis. The CSU certificates entitle the companies to defer their debt or tax payments.

The 7,600 firms account for 1.4% of the total number of 540,000 firms registered in Romania (540,0000). The cumulative turnover of the 7,600 firms that got CSU certificates was RON 50 billion (just over EUR 10 billion) in 2019, according to Termene.ro - a service that aggregates and runs analyses based on the companies’ financial statements. The turnover of the 7,600 firms accounted for some 3.3% of the total turnover of the firms in Romania last year.

Half of the companies that applied for CSU certificates were in good financial position before the COVID-19 crisis hit, according to Termene.ro. One third of the firms requesting CSU certificates are located in the Bucharest metropolitan area - while the share of the companies in the area is only some 20% of the total Romanian companies.

As regards the breakdown by sectors, five sectors - mainly in the area of services for households, accounted for 50% of the 7,600 firms. The most affected area is that of restaurants and bars where over 1,300 companies have requested CSU certificates (1 out of 5 CSU applicants coming from this market), followed by the non-food retail with over 1,060 such certificates.

Other areas strongly affected are the hotel industry (447 CSU certificates issued), beauty and hairdressing salons (383), and dental services (341).

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