Chinese use Romanian software to collect taxes

Kepler-Rominfo, a consultancy, outsourcing and IT solution development company entered the Chinese market last year by providing cash management solutions to the fiscal administration of a region and to McDonald's China. "We have already signed a contract with McDonald's China and with the fiscal administration of a region there," Genovel Iovu, business development manager of Kepler-Rominfo, told ZF. The branch in China, established last year, currently numbers 10 programmers, and the Romanian party handles the project management. Besides the cash management applications, Kepler-Rominfo wants to launch weather-monitoring solutions for airports, already implemented on the Romanian market. "We chose China because it is a market that needs such products, while in Europe, the authorities already have such applications and it is much harder to get buyers," the Kepler-Rominfo manager stated. The company set out to achieve a 6.2 million-euro turnover this year, an increase of approximately 10% on 2005. Kepler-Rominfo expects a 10-15% higher turnover in 2007, as the domestic market matures and projects to expand outside the country are carried out. Kepler-Rominfo, a company established in 2004 as a result of the merger of Kepler Prodimpex and Romanian Data Soft, is 50% held by French businessman Jean-Claude Silvestre, with the rest of the shares owned by other people with the company.