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Foreign investments make Romania much more vulnerable to crisis

Romania's economy is far more exposed to the turmoil on the international financial market due to the large investments made by global players on the domestic market, said Calin Tatomir, General Manager of Microsoft Romania, the local subsidiary of the world's largest business software producer, quoted by Business Standard daily.

'We, as a local team, feel that Romania's economy is dependant on Western economies. There are many foreign investments on the local market, and if we look at what is happening abroad, it is natural that we are more vulnerable because we are influenced by decisions which are made elsewhere,' Tatomir said.

The company official revised downward the growth rate estimated for the 2009 fiscal year, which will end on 1 July 2009, to 20 percent from 35 percent, due to economic and political upheaval. 'The 20 percent rise we are forecasting for the whole year is mainly based on the 6 percent increase registered in the first half of the fiscal year', he also said.

'It would have been unrealistic for us to announce the same growth rate in the second half of the year and the fact we have a new government and we fear some populist inflation triggering measures made us to forecast this evolution', underlined Tatomir.In his opinion, in the upcoming period the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) business line, which refers to local producers that sell PCs with pre-installed Microsoft licenses, will be most affected. Microsoft Romania's General Manager added that the company is not planning to cut costs, but that it intends to support its partners during the crisis. 'Microsoft has over 3,000 partners in Romania. Some of these can be on the verge of bankruptcy due to the crisis, so we are planning to come up with measures to ease their cash flow-related problems: payments in installments, fiscal advantages, or even a delay in payments,' said Tatomir. At present Microsoft Romania has 267 employees, of whom 133 work in the branch and 134 in the technical support center. 'Till next summer we want to have more than 300 employees and in three years I wish to rise their number to 500-600. Romania was selected as resource center and a lot of investments will be poured into this zone', Tatomir concluded.

 

Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: tatomir crisis romania investments

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