“Thus, 40% of respondent companies foresee a significant growth of 10% to 31% of turnover in H2 2015 compared with 48% in H1 2015, while 27% expect a growth rate of 5% to 10% in 2015, compared with 26% at the beginning of 2015. Another 55% of the respondent companies show confidence in the current economic direction of the country,” according to “A vision for growth” report.
This EY report is based on an online survey of 328 executives from companies in various sectors, who provided a perspective on how the domestic business environment is perceived at the middle of 2015.
The forecasts regarding the evolution of the profit in H2 of 2015 are rather similar to those at the beginning of the year 21% of the respondents expect the profit growth rate of their company to range from 5% to 10% in H2 2015, compared with 25% in H1 2015, and a slightly higher percentage of 35% in H2 2015 vs. 34% in H1 2015 expect the profit of their company to grow between 10 to 31%.
According to the report, 25% of respondents say they have earmarked investment growth rates of 5% to 10% in H2 2015 compared to 23% in H1 2015, followed by 14% who say will increase investments by 10% to 20% vs. 19% in H1 2015, and 13% who foresees their investments going up between 20% and 30% in the next 6 months compared with 17% at the beginning of the year.
In H2 2015, 10% expect salaries to go up between 10% to 20%, compared to 6% in H1 2015. Although there is a difference in the bracket “1% to 5%”, which has gone down from 49% in H1 2015 to 37% in H2 2015, there is just a 1% negative salary growth in H2 2015 compared with 3% at the beginning of the year.
Respondents say that the following changes in legislation will have the highest impact & high impact in their businesses going forward: VAT reduction (50%), reinvested profit redemption (48%), and change of tax system for freelancers (30%).
There are 3 main challenges noticed by respondent companies in their industry/field of activity in 2015: low competitiveness (16%), people retention and talent management (14%), and pressure on prices (13%).
On the other hand, the 3 main opportunities respondent companies have noticed in their industry/field of activity in 2015 are: export of IT services outside of Romania (16), internal market growth potential (13%), and technological advancements at the par with disruptive innovation (12% each).