Banks off the hook this year, the economy later

Bankers expect to overcome the recession before the real economy does, in the final quarter of this year. However, most top managers say that Romania will overcome the crisis next year. According to a study by Deloitte Romania consulting company, managers in the pharmaceutical and medical industries are leading the ranking in terms of optimism, while the most pessimistic are Chief Executive Officers of real estate and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies.

"The banking sector, in Romania and globally, was hit more severely than other sectors. I believe that in the same way the stock market foresees an economic rebound, banks that have felt the pressure of capital needs and provisions, are foreseeing a more rapid revival," the President of Banca Transilvania lender, Horia Ciorcila, said.

Managers are unhappy about the role the government has had in the economy so far. According to the Deloitte study, certain measures have made things worse for the business environment. "Other governments realized that markets cannot handle [the crisis] on their own, and that they need the state to take a technocratic role and act swiftly," the study coordinator, Deloitte Romania Partner Antonis Ioannidis, said. Deloitte interviewed more than 300 top managers from eight industries for the study. They said that the government could promote an economic rebound through tax exemptions to boost investments (28 percent), by directing budget spending to public investments (20 percent), and through regulation framework changes (14 percent).

The main problems of companies in the midst of this crisis are lower demand, exchange rate variations, difficult access to and higher costs of financing.

Other "costs" of the economic crisis, according to managers, are shifts in market shares of companies in most industries, market consolidation, including through mergers and acquisitions, higher productivity and efficiency of local companies, and this is the "cost" of the economic crisis, which is to end in the second half of 2010.

Business Standard