ARIS: Expropriation law must be extended to private investments

“The expropriation law should also be extended to strategically important major private investments whose impact is significant. We are no longer able to offer investors land, and so I do not see any other option,” said ARIS representatives.

The proposal by ARIS is supported by foreign investors in Romania. “Expropriation can be considered for major investment projects, public or private,” said KPMG Romania’s Director of Taxation Services, Raymond Breden, who is also Vice President of the Romanian-British Chamber of Commerce. “In other countries there are laws which allow for expropriation, in the case of significant projects, but people are remunerated at a fair price and only following consultations,” added Breden.

Representatives of the Association of Automotive Manufacturers of Romania (ACAROM) also insist that the ARIS initiative is necessary to sustain investments announced in the automotive area. “It is absolutely devilish what is happening with the latest Renault investment (Ed. n. the Renault Technologie Roumanie Design Center) in Titu, where we have 80 percent of a piece of land and cannot buy the remaining 20 percent because of ill will on behalf of several speculators,” said Constantin Stroe, President of ACAROM and Vice President of Automobile Dacia, the latter one of the largest foreign investments in Romania.

“No decision-maker considering investments in Romania can understand why our land prices are higher than those in Paris or Tokyo and it is hard to explain why prices have risen from €0.25 per square meter to €10 square meters in just a few months,” added Stroe.

Experts contacted by Business Standard indicated that the reasons for expropriation must be exceptional ones. “Normally, any factory must be built on open, undeveloped land. In exceptional cases, such as localities with very high unemployment, a company contributing to the improvement of the region’s economic situation could negotiate for expropriation, but only if the price is right for the owner,” added Breden.