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Many small and medium-sized companies will disappear, undoubtedly, but a government is responsible for the health of each of its citizens, not for the survival of each SME or every enterprise, especially in a market economy, Valentin Lazea, chief-economist of the National Bank of Romania (BNR), said in a specialized video-conference on Tuesday.
"Many small and medium-sized companies will disappear, without a doubt. Let us not confuse two clear principles: a state, a government is responsible for the health of every citizen, but it is not responsible for the survival of every SME or every business, especially in a market economy. We've come to a point today when the state is deemed responsible for saving all businesses... Where's the market economy in all this? Romania has a few strengths over other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, which could help it emerge stronger from the crisis, namely, we do not have as much foreign trade as the countries of Visegrad, which are more hit from this point of view, we do not have a tourism that relies so much on the arrival of foreign tourists, so a weakness that becomes a strength in the current circumstances, and Romania has relatively fewer employees in micro-enterprises, which seems quite surprising as compared to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In other words, if we did not have the situation of the twin deficits - the fiscal deficit and the budget deficit - that are greatly dragging us down, we would have a chance to get out of the crisis," Lazea said.
In the view of the chief-economist of the BNR, it is not fair for some countries to say that "on the date of "x May" we will emerge from the crisis", and this "should be done strictly according to the medical parameters".
He added that, in terms of the post-crisis economies, there will be a situation where public debts will increase, they will be thrown on the shoulders of the future generations, and inflation will increase in the long run.
Representatives of the financial-banking environment and the capital market participated, on Tuesday, in the video-conference on "The Post-Pandemic World", organized by the Bursa Press Group.
