Empowering Romania as the Eastgate trade hub of Europe (RO)

A large group of companies, experts and stakeholders discussed, during the seminar "Empowering Romania as the Eastgate Trade Hub of Europe", the possibilities to enhance the competitive position of Romania in Europe and develop it as the Eastgate Trade Hub of Europe, through the Port of Constanþa.

A number of ideas were developed that are considered of support to implement efficient trade corridors through Romania, focused on attracting additional foreign companies that establish value added activities (e.g. assembly, customization) in Romania, bringing growth of GDP, jobs and tax income to the State.

The seminar focused on finding legislative, fiscal, infrastructure, logistics and knowledge solutions that can enhance Romania's position as a key location in Europe for trade and logistics purposes.

"Trade follows always the path of least resistance, and Romania possesses fundamental competitive advantages that, added by measures already in use in other EU countries, provide Romania with the opportunity to develop such a path of least resistance", stated Robin Martens, Chairman of the European Gateways Platform and Director General of Archicom SRL.

"Although we believe that transport infrastructure is an important element in order to transform Romania as the logistics hub of Central and Eastern Europe, infrastructure alone will not attract the investments in this field. What is also needed is a stable and predictable business climate and the implementation of several key measures from a fiscal point of view that would make Romania a preferred destination for foreign direct investments", stated Peter de Ruiter, Tax and Legal Services Leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania and president of the Dutch-Romanian Chamber of Commerce.

The outcome of this conference has been summarized in a working document, a white paper with overviews, conclusions and recommendations.

In the preparation of this conference, the Romanian authorities have shown strong interest in this initiative and have expressed their intention to take the recommendations from the business community on in the development of the necessary masterplans to achieve the objective of making Romania a country of excellent distribution and logistic services.

The conference has come up with the following recommendations in the white paper:

I. Import VAT deferment
II. Global Fiscal Representative
III. Customs duties deferment procedure
IV. Authorized Economic Operator
V. Business environment predictability
VI. Extended Customs Gate
VII. Use of CO2 emission reduction for EU
VIII. Inter-modal strategy for Romania
IX. Inland Assembly & Logistics ports
X. Ro-La over Carpathians
XI. Black Sea – Danube Canal fee
XII. Supply chain & Logistics education

The seminar was organized by the European Gateways Platform, The Netherlands-Romanian Chamber of Commerce, the Netherlands Embassy in Bucharest, the Dutch-Romanian Network, and Archicom SRL.

Source: Archicom

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