Stiri	Stiri afaceri	Stiri companii	Evenimente de afaceri

Grapini: Local textile production will drop 25-30% in 2009

The local textile market will experience the effects of the crisis in the first quarter of 2009, when industrial production will drop by 25-30% compared to 2008 and the number of employees will be significantly reduced, said Maria Grapini, the president of FEPAIUS, the patrons' organization in the field. Grapini added that textile firms can no longer cope with high interest rates and export orders usually received during this period are delayed.

"The interest rate has grown 2.5 times, and firms can no longer cope with them. Most of them had been included in co-financing projects but gave them up as they did not have money for other investments. Moreover, entrepreneurs fear that export orders have dropped considerably," Maria Grapini says.

The situation created will reflect first of all on labour force, now dropping, both because of the workers' migration and because many small enterprises had to close down.

According to Grapini, in the first 7 months of the year the number of employees in the textile industry dropped by 58,000 as against the same period of 2007 and will continue to drop because of the financial crisis."The state should take measures and offer jobs to people who were fired, as the situation is very serious. I think that at least 10,000-15,000 workers will be fired until the end of the year," Grapini added.According to data supplied at the beginning of the year by FEPAIUS, the number of employees in the textile industry was 347,000 in 2007 from 393,000 in 2006.Maria Grapini met on Monday with representatives of the Export Council to discuss the effects of the crisis on the Romanian textile industry.

The Council will send the premier a letter with suggestions which may reduce the crisis impact on several segments of Romanian economy. "We suggested that the interest rate difference since the moment of engaging the credit to the present should be supported by EximBank and requested the setting up of a risk fund from the state budget", Granini said. The Romanian textile market has been on descending trail for two years, the most conclusive example being the industrial textile production, which reached last year 9.38 billion lei (2.81 billion euros) on the drop by 12% compared to 2006.

In April, the national textile producers asked for government support to get out of crisis. Among their suggestion was the elaboration of projects turning to account Romanian textile brands for export, the promotion of fiscal support policies to develop specialized companies in rural areas, and to encourage small Romanian entrepreneurs or young designers.

Sursa: http://www.actmedia.ro

Tags: textile romanian crisis production grapini

Articole similare