The economic recovery package targeted by the government will have a "limited" impact on small and medium-sized enterprises, said on Friday Chairman of SME Romania Florin Jianu, calling for simplification and debureaucratisation measures.
He participated, at the Government House in a meeting of the National Tripartite Council for Social Dialogue, during which the measures of the economic recovery package designed by the government were discussed.
"From the perspective of IMM Romania, it was a useful discussion. It's good that we are talking about economic recovery. It's a bit much said, and a bit strongly used this term of 'economic recovery' when you put 0.01% of GDP in programmes for the business community - I mean to SMEs, which contribute over 50% of GDP - in programmes. That is, EUR 2.2 billion cumulatively as against a GDP of 375 billion. But the signal is good, there is talk of economic recovery," Jianu told the media.
In his opinion, the impact of the economic recovery programme is a "limited" one, because the measures will not affect tens of thousands of SMEs, just 200 - 300 of them
Jianu added that he would have liked the package to include other measures that have no budgetary impact. He added that several proposals made by IMM Romania have been taken over, including the extension from 30 to 90 days of the term in which a micro-enterprise must hire an employee.
"The business community needs impact, large numbers, tens of thousands of impacted IMM, as was the IMM Invest program. I saw today support for the Investment and Development Bank, for example. I told the finance minister that we forget about the Guarantee Fund for SMEs that we have," Jianu said.
He called for debureaucratisation measures, which "cost nothing", but "simplify the life" of companies and citizens.
At the same time, Jianu asked for discussions to combat unfair competition, which "suffocates" the business community. The state must step in to prove its efficiency in combatting this phenomenon, he said.
"Unfair competition can be seen in almost all business areas. While five years ago it did not appear on the radar of the problems of the business community, in the White Paper of SMEs of the last three years it appeared in the top three. I'm afraid that this year it could appear in first place. (...) It comes from tourism, construction, workshops, from many area of activity in which the state does not intervene and does not do its job. It is not the private sector's job to correct these things. We represent honest business people, who are registered, and pay their taxes as large as they are. But they may not be able to cope anymore if there's also unfair competition in the market," Jianu said.
According to him, the administrative reform will have an impact of RON 3.3 billion lei this year, representing less than 0.01% of GDP, underscoring the importance of making spending more efficient in the public space.
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