The sector in 2020 had 190,000 firms with 713,000 employees and overall turnover of RON583 billion.
2020 figures show a general decline on the year for all the three main indicators, turnover, employee number and company number. But, as it’s a huge and extremely diverse sector, there are trend differences between furniture and electro-IT retail, for instance. The first shrank as people spent more time indoors, while the second one rose, from the same reason.
Overall, trade is Romania’s most important “industry” taking into account total turnover reported by companies operating in the field. More exactly, all companies in the Romanian economy posted RON1,650 billion turnover in 2020, with trade accounting for 35%. Similarly, out of the almost 770,000 companies active in Romania, a quarter operate in the field of trade. At the same time, the sector overall is the second biggest employer in the economy after the processing industry.
The fact that trade weighs heavily in the domestic business matters both in good times, of economic growth, and during bad ones, leading to business shutdowns, bankruptcies, insolvencies and layoffs.
As regards the number of economic players, the true impact of the pandemic will be seen in 2021, as last year the State was still pumping money in business to keep it alive. A major increase in the number of insolvencies is already visible this year, which can further translate into bankruptcies, company deregistrations or business closures.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)