“The only thing I can do is give up,” said George Parvan, the businessman from the northern Romanian city of Baia Mare, who had opened a construction material business in Ukraine. “The idea was to develop. We send goods to our company in that country to secure payments, but for several months we have been receiving increasingly less money,” added Parvan.
The past few years lead to a balance of trade between Romania and the Ukraine, due to exports of construction materials, and attracted the attention of major local investors, such as Rompetrol oil company, Altex household appliance and IT retailer, and the Egger wood panel producer, who announced plans to expand their distribution networks across the border. Dan Ostahie, owner of Altex, indicated that he is analyzing the new data, but indicated that he “is not in a position to comment until the end of February.”
The Ukrainians had counted on the low price of gas to compete on the Romanian chemical fertilizer market, while the producers of baked goods were looking into massive wheat imports. “If customs taxes to the EU are raised, then [Ed. n. imports] become interesting. There would be less of an advantage in price than in quality,” said Aurel Popescu, President of the Rompan baker’s union, in a declaration for Business Standard, who believes that the changes of importing are low. As concerns fertilizers, President Traian Basescu said that he had discussed the cheap delivery of Russian gas to Ukraine as placing Romania’s petrochemical industry in a situation in which it is “impossible for it to compete on the international market for the sale of fertilizers.
