Daniel Urâtu, Deputy Secretary General of SMEs Romania: "I have gone from one crisis to another. Entrepreneurs are waiting to see what happens with the government, who will come to power, what ideas they have in mind."

The Deputy Secretary General of SMEs Romania pointed out that at the level of the only representative employers' confederation at the national level, which represents the interests of SMEs in dialogue with the Government regarding taxation, debureaucratization, it has been observed that after companies have faced various crises in the last five years, now everyone is in expectation due to political instability.

“We have gone from one crisis to another, starting with the pandemic crisis, followed by the energy crisis, the war at Romania's border, the war in Ukraine, then again the energy crisis, inflation which somehow comes from the increase in taxation, but in the last two months also from the increase in fuel prices. And so on. We also have these days a political crisis, as we might call it. Just the other day, I was joking with colleagues (...) and I said that we do not need a global crisis because we create our own. The current crisis, political or political instability, creates uncertainties regarding investments and in turn for entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs are waiting to see what happens with the government, who will come to power, what ideas they have in mind, what programs or tax increases or legislative changes, and then everyone is in expectation to see what else will happen in order to know the direction to take.

This automatically leads to an increase in the costs that companies have. It is another tax, and unfortunately these things push from behind the increase in prices for the services or products they offer, automatically reducing consumption, but also the increase in taxation, overlapped with the increase in inflation, leads to these things. Plus, you cannot transfer all these taxes into prices, because you will not sell anymore. And then entrepreneurs also face a reduction in profit margins. And then they also ask themselves, is it still profitable, is it worth investing?” said the Deputy Secretary General of SMEs Romania, Daniel Urâtu, at the Profit.ro SME conference – Challenges for small and medium entrepreneurs in an environment full of uncertainties.