Austria, main source of foreign capital to Romania but profit for investors remains a question

With a total net investment of approximately EUR 10 billion and with EUR 2.2 billion in trade between Romania and Austria, the Western European country remains the main investor into the Romanian economy, information from the Austrian Embassy to Romania reveals. However, “at this moment Romania does not necessarily needs imported products, but especially domestic production of goods for domestic consumption. And here the Austrian investors have an important contribution by supporting not only financially, but also by bringing new technologies, know-how, management and human resources and creating new employment opportunities,” said Rudolf Lukavsky, Commercial Counselor of the Austrian Embassy in Bucharest (in picture). Austrian companies currently employ 100,000 people in Romania. Austrian companies expect more efficiency, transparency and consistency in the public administration, in particular in the public procurement area, in terms of formal bids, as well as an improvement of the legal system in order to better facilitate their investments, according to Lukavsky. “ The recent taxation events occurred unexpectedly represent a problem directly connected to the planning process and business development plans of Austrian investors in Romania. (...) Austrian companies do not have high expectations of support from the Romanian state, but they expect a number of standard conditions with a solid base, allowing the development of a healthy business,” Rudolf Lukavsky has also added. ”Profit at the moment is still a question. Besides banking activities and those carried by Petrom, I hear little talk about business profits in the rest of the areas,” the commercial counselor went on. The Austrian embassy's trade division expects an increase of 10 percent in the Austrian export of goods to Romania for the next two or three years. The Romanian products which could reach Austria are mainly electronic and agricultural products. „Agricultural products in Romania come in a wide range and the best advertising that can be done is through word of mouth. Here, informative brochures can help less than in case of other kind of products,” Lukavsky has said. Refering to the capital market, Richard Schenz, Vice-president of the Economic Chamber of Austria mentioned that currently, due to the financial crisis, solutions are being searched so that companies could receive loans from Austrian banks represented in Romania. „We presented to the Romanian Ministry of Finance a range of measures that we have proposed to the Austrian Government. In Romania, the Government needs to realize the importance of these measures and has to react to and adapt them to the local specific conditions,” according to Schenz. One of the measures for the local capital market refers to the implementation of the Corporate Codex for listed companies, in order to assimilate a necessary capital of trust, Schenz concluded. Anca Berger (anca@romania-insider.com)