“Fifteen years ago, I started this business from scratch, inspired the business of Mr. Ioan Popa of Transavia. I see two generations of entrepreneurs in the room, the generation of Mr. Popa, who had the courage to start a business after the Revolution (fall of communist regime i.e.) and develop it, but those were few. And I also see the current generation, who should ‘reclaim our country’. I don’t think we should become involved in politics, but we must have powerful organizations working together with the politicians,” said Florin Florea, manager of Albatros Gold, an egg producer with 26 million lei (EUR5.5 million) revenue in 2017.
Alba County is among the most representatives areas for local entrepreneurship, because this is the place where businesses like Albalact (dairy), Supremia (seasonings), Pehart Tec (paper) and Elit Cugir (meat) were built that created national brands and were later acquired by multinationals from the local entrepreneurs. The largest entrepreneurial businesses in Alba County, where the total revenue of its companies stands at RON20 billion, are Transavia (meat), Elis Pavaje and Jidvei (wine). Ioan Popa, the chairman of Transavia, the largest actor on the chicken market, believes Romania is one of the few countries in the world in a very good position for a new and future development.
“Romania can grow a lot but that hasn’t happened yet. As far as I am concerned, whereas the centralized economy before 1989 was very well controlled by the government, after 1989, the politicians have never known too much about the economy. No one is working towards it. There is a major disconnect between the politics and economy and we shouldn’t be surprised things haven’t been going as we would have liked them to. Things only developed because of entrepreneurs who had enough ability and luck to develop a business,” Ioan Popa said.
About 150 entrepreneurs, bankers, consultants and managers attended the event in Alba Iulia. The ZF tour will continue throughout the country and the next stop will be in Iasi on November 14. (EUR1=RON4.6668)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)