This looks a lot like 2008, when the crisis first hit the stock market and then expanded into the real economy.
What are the chances of it affecting Romania?
“Romania is caught unprepared for financial turmoil. The government is only interested in this year’s elections, as it was back in 2008. The election giveaways pushed the country into a higher budget deficit, which could be hard to finance, exactly the same as in 2008,” says Radu Georgescu, founder of CFO Network advisory firm.
“Because we greatly depend on foreign capital, we will be affected by the first wave of recession.”
On the other hand, Ionut Dumitru, chief economist of Raiffeisen Bank, say that it is too early to be talking about a new crisis.
“We don’t have the necessary clues to talk about that. There is turmoil on financial markets, but no crisis. There are challenges, but we need to keep going and not have any slippages – fiscal, budgetary or salary policy ones first of all.”
Vladimir Sterescu, country manager and senior vice-president customer support solutions with outsourcing service provider CGS says, “International news are not that bad for the time being, but we looked at the fact that many Fortune 500 companies announced massive layoffs for the third year in a row. What do they know and we don’t, why are they resorting to preventive layoffs, if their business is doing well? There is already talk of a new recession, hence the cautious hiring policy.”
In the event of a new recession, Romania’s outsourcing services industry will grow as it did in the past, but other sectors, like banking, will shrink, he added.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)