The United States of America has financed a study on bureaucratic obstacles that hinder the establishment and development of small and middle-sized enterprises in Romania, US ambassador to Bucharest, James Rosapepe, yesterday told a press conference.
The comparative study (between Romania and the state of Maryland, where the ambassador was born) was drawn up by the Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS) and offers concrete recommendations for the fluidisation of procedures that have to be followed for setting up small and middle-sized enterprises.
Results are shocking and reveal the fact that, while in Maryland it takes only one day to register a firm, in Romania the procedure takes between 49 and 102 days. In the United States, 7 forms, weighing 30 grams, have to be filled in, while in Romania 83 pages weighing half a kilogram have to be filled in.
A Romanian entrepreneur has to go in 5-10 different places to start a business, while an American has to go to only one place. Authorities' representatives annually subject a SME to a number of investigations ranging between 11 and 23, while in Maryland the number of investigations ranges between 0 and 8.
The number of necessary authorisations, approvals or licences varies between 23 and 29 in Romania and between 2 and 10 in the United States.
To cut down costs generated by these bureaucratic procedures, consultants made several recommendations to Romanian authorities: simplify the procedure linked to starting an activity (eliminating approvals received from the City Hall, allowing registration by phone, fax, email or post; request for sanitary, environment or protection authorisations should be made simultaneously).
The annual balance, asked by the Finance Ministry, but which is of no public use, should be eliminated. At the same time, the economic police should also be eliminated, since many transition countries have already passed this stage, showed Alberta Ashbrook, IRIS programme director.
The study recommends that the fiscal registration should only be made at the Trade Registry. A pilot-project in this sense is already underway in Bucharest and is going to be applied in other cities as well, starting September. So far, firms had to be registered with the Trade and Industry Chamber of the Trade Registry, with other governmental agencies and with the Finance Ministry.
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