FIC: Fiscal measures package, very bad news for investors 

The fiscal measures package is very bad news for investors and we see a drastic drop in trust in a very short period of just a few months, Daniel Anghel, president of the Foreign Investors Council (FIC) said in a press release sent on Wednesday."Last year, the foreign investment flowin Romania was 10 billion euros, the highest amount in over a decade, reflecting more trust from companies. Unfortunately, these sudden moves in fiscal policy motivated only by the desire to bring more money to the budget in the short term will negatively affect not only perception, but also investments as such in a period of macroeconomic uncertainty. Authorities should think about how to attract new investments, not just how to tax the existing ones more, because there is a risk that they will decrease," said Daniel Anghel, president of FIC.The latest edition of the Business Sentiment Index (BSI), conducted by theForeign Investors Council, shows that investors' perception of Romania has deteriorated significantly due to the fiscal measures package. According to FIC, only one third of investors responding to the BSI consider the Romanian market attractive in the autumn of 2023, due to the impact of the fiscal measures package, while more than half of FIC members consider that the economic environment in Romania has worsened in the last period, reaching a seven-year low.Signals about the possibility of new taxes are leading companies to be more cautious about allocating budgets for new investments, 20% of respondents will reduce their investment plans for the coming period, and the number of those expecting revenues to increase in the coming months fell from 70% in March to 54% in October. Perceptions of regulatory constraints are near an eight-year low (only 3.8% of respondents consider our country to be competitive in this respect). At the same time, the tax burden has worsened compared to the last 4 years (53% of respondents marked Romania as uncompetitive).As many as 52 out of 116 FIC members responded at this edition of the perception index.The Foreign Investors Council is the association that brings together the most important investors with foreign capital in Romania, about 120 of the largest companies in the country with a cumulative turnover that represents one fifth of the gross domestic product and that have a significant contribution to the state budget.