The extremely hard times, with two years of a pandemic and one year of war on the border, led in 2022 to an increase by just 3% in the number of start-up SMEs from 2021, far below the true potential of the Romanian economy, and to more companies closing, suspending business or being written off, Florin Jianu, chairman of the National Council of privately-run SMEs (CNIPMMR), said on Wednesday, according to Agerpres.

„Europe and Romania are coming out after two years of a pandemic and one year of a war at our borders that does not seem to end. That was visible in the economy, in terms of the increase in the number of SMEs, a growth far below the true potential of the Romanian economy, an increase of only 3% from 2021 – and a year 2022 in which more companies were closed, suspended or written off than in 2021. And that indicator shows regional disparities, it shows uneven development. We can see that the counties where social inequalities are even greater are also the counties where the entrepreneurial intensity is lower, where there is a lower number of small and medium-sized enterprises, of medium-sized companies or large companies. In 2021, we witnessed this disparity deepen with an up to 70% increase in the number of company closures in some counties, which implicitly also means loss of jobs. It is very important that moving forward we collaborate intensively and play an intensive role in terms of social forces,” Jianu told an event organised in Bucharest by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in partnership with Romania’s National Trade Union Bloc.

Jianu participated in one of the two thematic workshops within the program called „The future of European funds for cohesion and fair transition: with or without workers?”.

He added that Romania is at a stage where its social partners can implement multi-year programmes that will structurally change the labour market, skills, entrepreneurs and those entering the economy – and thus we can bring up to European level models of good practice.

In his opinion, a protocol that should be implemented in Romania regards the digital transformation of labour.

Agerpres