Mihai Daraban, CCIR: "Until we solve the structural problems of the economy, the sovereign fund is beyond the horizon"

Our country's economy has massive structural problems, the revival of which must be a priority, said Mihai Daraban, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR).

Mr. Daraban said: "I am skeptical about the establishment of a sovereign investment fund, not because I do not want to have such a fund, but because, on the one hand, there is the problem of the sources of its supply. Countries like Saudi Arabia or Norway have very important natural resources, especially hydrocarbons, and can afford to allocate part of their export to those sovereign funds. However, the economy of our country has structural problems that have not been completed. We follow the dynamics of the economy year by year and I can tell you, for example, that when we took over the mandate we had 140,000 companies that were active and in operation at the Trade Register but did not submit the balance sheet and now, after ten years, there are 383,000 companies that are active but I don't submit anything to the tax office".

The president of the CCIR added: "On the other hand, we must also look at the structure of the national economy. If we look at exports, we see that eight of the countries that are part of the Three Seas Initiative are landlocked, but they do not make up even half of the volume of the port of Rotterdam. In other words, a domestic Romanian, Polish or Hungarian brand with high added value does not exist. According to Eurostat, we are in last place in research and innovation. We are economies of subcontractors, which depend a lot on the dynamics of the West, especially Germany and France which, like it or not, represent the engine of the Romanian economy, because they mostly give us work".

According to Mr. Daraban, our country will have to adapt its economy towards the Romanian consumer.

Read Do we need a Sovereign Fund in our country?

"We have to bring foreign capital, because it is good to consume from the country regardless of the nationality of the capital. The only way to attract investors is through permissive taxation. We don't have a lot of skilled labor anymore, unfortunately we had a retrocession law, because the whole lithosphere was retroceded and we are not in the position of Hungary, which offered the BMW company a perimeter of land to build its factory; we can't do this anymore. And then the only method to attract investors is a low and predictable taxation", said Mihai Daraban.

According to the president of the CCIR, another priority for Romania must be the administrative reorganization of the country. "The Sovereign Fund is a great idea, but applicable in a very distant horizon from now on", pointed out Mihai Daraban.