The way the new tax measures taken by the Government have been communicated creates a sense of uncertainty among German companies, given that companies are afraid of extra costs, especially for IT companies, but there are also uncertainties about planning and implementing future fiscal policies.
Dragos Anastasiu, President of the German-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK Romania) pointed out on Tuesday in a press conference that the business environment does not complain about the level of taxation in Romania, but about the lack of predictability of the fiscal framework, which is much worse.
”Thinking logically, business people need some conditions to take steps towards investment. The first is the workforce, the second is to find an attractive tax framework, as investments are made to make a profit. At the same time, they must have confidence in the environment in which they invest,” AHK’s Anastasiu stated.
In his opinion, other very important areas that investors look at are infrastructure, as well as health and education sectors.
”What we see now in Romania does not necessarily convey the best signals in terms of trust. This comes from predictability, from verbal and non-verbal signals about foreign investors, multinationals, banks, to those who make the economy grow,” AHK official said.
In the context of repeated negative allegations against companies with foreign capital in Romania, the Chamber of Commerce says that “making a difference between Romanian and foreign companies or multinationals does not correspond to the spirit of a globalised economy.”
Thus, the considerations against foreign capital contradict not only the purpose of attracting foreign investments, but such “generalised and unjustified accusations are totally counterproductive to the development of the Romanian economy,” AHK warns.
Moreover, for the business environment, the usefulness of the new tax measures is not clear, given the need to adjust the costs.
Germany is Romania’s most important economic and trade partner, with 23.1 percent of total exports and 19.9 percent of imports. There are about 7,500 German companies or with German capital in Romania, most of them in Bucharest and Timis, Sibiu, Brasov and Cluj counties. They have more than 250,000 employees, according to AHK estimates.
German investments in Romania amounted to over EUR 9.2 billion at end-2016.