As the year is drawing to a close, various economic rankings and surveys are being published.
For instance, a national ranking of the private companies in Romania has been recently made public. This is a reference event in the Romanian business environment, and has reached its 23rd year. At this edition, the organiser, the National Council of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Romania, promoted the merits of the businesses with the best performances in 2014.
The President of the National Council of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Ovidiu Nicolescu, told Radio Romania: “The ranking of private companies in Romania, based on a professional analysis of the 635,200 companies that have submitted their financial records, proves that there is an overall progress of the local small and medium-sized enterprises, with better performances reported particularly in those industries working for foreign markets, as well as in IT, environment services, and some areas of the construction sector. There are outstanding performances in the food industry as well, particularly when it comes to organic products. So generally speaking, the best results were reported in the new economy, the knowledge-based economy, those economic sectors based on innovation, on internationalisation. Unfortunately, such performances were only reported by an elite of SMEs. A large number of such enterprises were only struggling to survive and to keep operations running.”
Ovidiu Nicolescu also told us how things have improved as regards those companies that focus on development: “In this respect we can talk about an improvement, although not as substantial as we would have liked it. However, there is an improvement compared to the previous years. For example, according to the surveys we conducted early this year based on direct interviews with 1,375 entrepreneurs, around 60% of companies have focused on the same main activity, and for next year around 28% intend to develop their operations, which is a good thing. The fact that 3 out of 10 companies plan to develop their operations is a great thing, not only for those companies. This is an idea that I’d like to stress: what does having more, better, better performing companies mean? More jobs, more products, more services, higher added value at national level, higher revenues to the state budget.”
The president of the National Council of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Romania also referred to the factors that led to better performances of enterprises: “The main factors that led to this positive evolution are: a certain normalization of the business environment and the fact that we had the most constant legislation which made a part of the entrepreneurs trust the business environment again. Another very important element was the fact that the Romanian entrepreneurs improved their management and marketing, given the crisis of 2010-2011 in Romania and the challenges they faced in the respective context. For those who have survived, this was a good lesson, and now a great part of the enterprises, especially the small and medium sized ones, have adopted a more efficient management and marketing policy, and they can manage more cautiously and judiciously the funds. All these are reflected in the overall performances of companies”.
As of January 1st 2016 a new Fiscal Code will come into force. It provides for a drop in the VAT from 24% to 20% and down to 19% in 2017. Here is Ovidiu Nicolescu: “The Fiscal Code includes three categories of improvements that will have a positive effect on all companies, including the SMEs. First of all certain elements related to taxation have been reduced which will contribute to the growth of investments and aggregations and will push part of the grey economy at the surface. Secondly, several fiscal procedures have been simplified, as they caused great difficulties and exaggerated costs to micro-companies and small enterprises. Thirdly, the fiscal mechanism per se will function better, will be more harmonious and functional”.
The National Strategy for the development of SMEs 2020 estimates an increase in the number of small and medium sized enterprises in Romania by more than 40%, from 24 enterprises for one thousand inhabitants to 35.45 in 2020. As regards the number of employees of the SMEs, the strategy provides for an increase from 2.6 million in 2013 to 3.2 million in 2020. The 5 directions of the SMEs strategy are the support of entrepreneurship, access of SMEs to adequate financing, access of companies to competence and innovation, access to markets and the reaction of the public administration to the needs of SMEs.
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