Bucharest, Europe"s 3rd Choice For Business Expansion

Bucharest is the third city in Europe where the continent"s top 500 multinationals are planning to expand their business according to the 19th edition of the European City Monitor (ECM), a report issued annually by the real estate consultants Cushman & Wakefield. Bucharest is outranked by Moscow and Prague, tied with Warsaw and outranks Budapest. Polled by Cushman & Wakefield, the top 500 companies in Europe believe that Bucharest is making an effort to improve the business climate, but not as big an effort as Barcelona or Madrid, which lead the race for pleasing corporations looking to set up shop in a new city. When it comes to transportation, the perception is that Bucharest has improved internal transportation and therefore moved up from 30th to 26th as far as this subject is concerned. Budapest ranked 31st, Warsaw 30th and Prague also 26th. External transportation is a totally different subject, as Bucharest placed last among the top 34 European cities of importance business-wise, while Budapest moved up from 33rd to 26th. In terms of access to markets, Bucharest moved up 8 spots to 24th and tied with Stockholm and Istanbul. Rome, Vienna and Athens ranked below. Budapest (22nd), Prague (21st) and Warsaw (15th) did better. London placed first. Bucharest managed to secure the second position as regards the cost of labor, Warsaw being the only city that put a better offer on the table. Nevertheless, even a low price has a price: multinationals are hardly pleased with the qualification of Bucharest employees and placed the city on the 32nd position. Budapest ranked 21st, Prague 24th and Warsaw 25th. Besides a low cost of labor and plenty of room for quality of labor improvement, Bucharest is also offering tremendous opportunities to improve the quality of life for the employees, as the city managed to place 31st in this department. Warsaw is 32nd, Budapest 30th and Prague 29th. Corporations tend to believe that the employees in Barcelona (1st), Munich (2nd) and Stockholm (3rd) are enjoying the best quality of life. Nevertheless, this particular aspect plays a small role in the decision to start business in one city or another. The top five criteria that do matter are qualified labor availability, easy access to markets, customers and consumers, telecom quality, transportation networks and the cost of labor.On the bright side, Bucharest has managed to improve its perception in terms of pollution and moved up from 32nd to 30th. Warsaw appears as even more polluted than Bucharest, while Prague and Budapest placed 22nd and, respectively 20th. Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki, in this order, are the least polluted. Getting office space in Bucharest is no longer as cheap as it used to be. The city fell from the 2nd position last year to the 13th, while Budapest moved up from 8th to 6th and Warsaw fell from no. 1 to no. 5. Office space in Bucharest is both expensive and hard to get, as the availability indicator plunged a whooping 18 spots to no. 28. Telecommunications have improved in Bucharest and the city now stands in the 29th position (32nd last year), above Budapest, Warsaw and Prague, which share the 31st position. The authorities" financial efforts to encourage business (such as tax cuts and other incentives) placed Bucharest on the 11th position, down by one from last year. Prague ranked 9th, Budapest 4th and Warsaw 2nd. Despite being the third choice for business expansion in Europe, only 14% of the respondents believe that Bucharest is a known venue for business. London is by far the most popular (82%), while Paris is second (77%). However, it is Moscow that should be expecting the highest number of multinationals in the next five years.