At meeting with PM Citu, AHK Romania's Anastasiu asks for aid to companies, claims delays

Chairman of the Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce (AHK Romania) Dragos Anastasiu, member of the Coalition for the Development of Romania, said on Tuesday that at a meeting the same day with Prime Minister Florin Citu he requested the allocation of funds needed to implement aid measures for companies affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that payments are delayed.

"We also had a discussion about the aid measures and the main thing we want is for them to get implemented faster, to have measure 2, measure 3, a HORECA measure, a measure for those who are customers at shopping malls. There are some problems with implementation and budgeting and I asked for those amounts to be allocated because generally the companies are up to their neck underwater, so a rather strong government intervention is needed in the sense of implementation. And we also had a discussion related to flexible work, which got a good emergency ordinance last year, but the law adopted in Parliament made it valid for only three days and we want to return to the provisions of that Ordinance because we need more flexibility than we have under the current law," said Anastasiu after the meeting of the Prime Minister Florin Citu with officials of the Coalition for the Development of Romania.

Dragos Rosca, chairman of the Romanian Business Leaders said in his turn that he called for the continuation of the accompanying measures that are currently in place.

"Romania has a very low unemployment at EU level; it is unemployment that stands at 5pct of the workforce, and during the pandemic it did not increase much; it was covered by the support measures from the government at that time, as far as furloughing is concerned, as well as accompanying measures for temporary working time. Those sectors that had been affected, such as HORECA, were supported to a significant extent by these accompanying measures. We did not ask for more, just for for the current measures to continue," said Rosca.