The companies active in Romania need fresh capital of about EUR 11 billion, said Florin Georgescu, first deputy governor of Romania’s National Bank (BNR).

Private companies with foreign capital require EUR 6 billion whereas private firms with Romanian capital need EUR 4.5 billion. State-owned companies also need EUR 0.5 billion, Georgescu said, reports local Agerpres.

The BNR official said that he was worried about the companies that reported financial losses for several years in a row. Chronic decapitalization diminishes the GDP, Georgescu explained.

Romania had about 700,000 companies last year, according to BNR data. However, only 608,000 submitted their financial reports, 84,000 of which reported a null result. Of the remaining 524,000, more than half, namely 306,000 companies, were profitable. They made a total profit of EUR 17 billion, EUR 2 billion of which came from 720 profitable state companies.

On the other hand, about 219,000 companies, or 42% of the total, had losses in 2015. Their total losses were EUR 8.5 billion. This figure includes EUR 0.9 billion losses from 390 state-owned companies.

editor@romania-insider.com