CRISTIAN PÂRVAN:  The rise in the price of natural gas will hit us hard

The chain increases in the price of natural gas for non-household consumers over the last six months, compounded by the rise in price of electricity to occur next year, will affect Romania's industry, said Cristian Pârvan, the secretary general of the Romanian Businesspeople Association (AOAR): "The entire industry will be affected. Romania's competitiveness and exports will see their profitability decrease, if they have any margin left after the increase in the price of utilities and after the raising of the minimum and average wage etc". He also said that the decrease in profits will cause investments to stop, in order to keep competitiveness, and will cause business to "slow down to a crawl". The representative of the AOAR says that companies must have managers capable of handling this situation, to avoid going bankrupt.

Due to the continuously rising price of gas, "Interagro" has shut down all its plants, according to Ioan Niculaie who said: "6,000 people will be laid off permanently. Starting with January 15th, we will only keep 400-500 employees out of the almost 6,000 that we have. We have shut down all the plants in mid-November. Production cost is so high that I just can't work anymore. This is the first time that we shut them all down after 1997. It is an emergency situation. A lot of energy consumers will stop their operations due to the increase in the price of utilities".

Bread makers are already working at a loss, said Aurel Popescu, the president of ROMPAN, who said that after the holidays, the price of bakery products will be raised.

Another industry that is facing problems is that of alcohol, which only has a few producers left. Romulus Dascălu, the chairman of GARANT, said: "We are at the end of our rope. There are high odds that we will close down. We are very close to the edge. Alcohol makers will be the first to shut down".

The garment sector will not remain untouched by what is happening on the energy market, as the rise in the price of utilities directly affects the production of textiles, said Mihai Păsculescu, the president of the FEPAIUS. He also expressed concern over the lack of workers available in this sector.