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The losses in the tourism industry go up, until now, to over 7 billion Euro and we need a series of measures, such as support from the state and bank instalments' postponement for 18 months, instead of 9 months, declared Wednesday, during a press conference, Mohammad Murad, the chairman of the Romanian Tourism Employer's Federation (FPTR).
"I believe that the hotel and HoReCa industry has not encountered such a situation in 50 years of existance. It is very important to know where we are at. The losses, until now, are of over 7 billion Euro at the level of HoReCa and hotel industry. We are talking about 7 billion Euro, which were sums cashed in 2019 and the related tax, calculated by us at over 1.5 billion Euro towards the state. All we are asking, also at the repeated meetings with the former Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, who had a special opening and we thanked him repeatedly, thinking he did not only want to create an image (...) We thought he was coming with direct facts, a direct support, we said that for this industry a solution was needed so that we will not collapse and even face our clinical death. A thing that, unfortunately, has not happened (the solution, ed. n.). We received no support, on the contrary, many talks, without value. Their value was only for creating an image, beautiful pictures taken with the Prime Minister. At first, I was personally pleased to have my picture taken with the Prime Minister, but for the second photo I realized that it is a waste of time to keep talking about, because all we were talking was not coming to fruition," Murad said.
He yet expressed trust in the current Prime Minister, with whom he discussed when the latter used to be the Finance Minister and who said that "those promises will be facts".
On the other hand, the FPTR chairman showed "surprised" by the fact that when a new law is launched, "that is asking us for money", it is applied in two days, yet when it is about a law that comes to support, implementing the rules can take up to a year.
