Publicat pe 23/11/2017

Bucharest, November 23^rd, 2017: The President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR), Mr. Mihai Daraban, participated on Thursday, November 23^rd, at the “Competition 2.0” Conference, organized by the Competition Council, at the Carol I Central University Library.

Bogdan Chiriţoiu, the President of the Competition Council, said at the opening of the conference that: “(…) the current state of competition is good in Romania. The Romanian economy is already growing for a number of years, the speed of growth is stronger. We have one of the biggest and sustained growth rates in the EU and this is also due to the fact that we have functioning markets, markets where we see competition going well with a large number of participants who compete intensively when there is no impediment to entering the market (…). We still see significantly lower prices in Romania than in most EU countries. (…) The Competition Council’s report tries to capture a change in the Romanian economy. Inevitably, we are dominated by the problems of traditional industries. At the same time, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Romanian economy is changing: (…) traditional industries are inevitably restraining their activity, new industries are emerging. New technologies are an opportunity for Romania, the share of IT in GDP has grown more than some traditional segments of the economy and we wanted in this report to focus on this new dimension of the economy, on these new, developing sectors, which come with new services and new needs and can boost competition in traditional markets.”

Present at the conference marking 20 years of competition in Romania, the President of CCIR, Mr. Mihai Daraban said: “CCIR has been organizing business opinion polls for three consecutive years, and the subject of competition is constantly in the top 3 of the problem faced by the economic environment, of course after the famous fiscal measures and labor crisis. (…) Recently, the National Top of Companies was held, an event where we are proposing an exclusive dialogue with the legal person, and I can tell you that the first 10 places in the 7 major fields of activity, on the 351 sub-domains, were qualified 12,377 economic agents. Please note that these economic agents account for 1.9% of the total number of companies that have submitted their balance sheet to tax authorities and account for about 57% of total turnover. The CCIR is, if may I say so, the means of analysis based on the figures provided by the state institutions and we try, by the methods we have at our disposal, to make this link between the Commerce Registry databases, the Finance and, why not, the Department of Commerce”.

Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mr. Liviu Voinea, in his speech, referred to structural factors in the evolution of consumer goods prices, the role of competition and commercial opening: “The International Monetary Fund presented, in the latest global economic report of 2016, a chapter devoted to the impact of globalization on inflation that highlights both globalization and increased trade integration has facilitated access for foreign producers, increasing price competition in local markets and importing.”

The conference presented the report “Evolution of Competition in Key Sectors – 2017”.

The main themes debated at the conference were: “Competition, regulation and new business models” and “New trends in telecom markets and their impact on competition”.

The event was attended by representatives of international bodies (OECD, Serbia Competition Authority, Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission), Parliament, Government, Public Authorities, Business Environment, Legal and Academic Environment, and of civil society organizations.