Siemens CEO: For many, the worst is not over yet

Cristian Secosan, general manager of Siemens SRL, the domestic subsidiary of Germany's Siemens industrial giant developing in Romania a business of above 300m euros by serving such markets as energy, transport or healthcare, says the worst is not over yet, with certain businesses due to be hit harder this year.

"A lot of investments were halted (in 2009 i.e.), with cost cutting as the motto. For many the worst is not over yet because, as we did, in 2009 they lived off the long-term contracts they gained years ago. This is how things happen on this market. Unfortunately, unless we get projects, the fallout will be serious, and honestly I do not believe we'll see major projects being resumed in 2010," says Secosan, who has been running Siemens SRL since mid-2009.

At that time, Secosan said it was because of the long-term contracts the company had that the crisis fallout was not strongly felt in 2009, but, as new orders are late to come up, the significant declines may come in 2010.

He does not believe the major electricity generation projects announced as early as 2008 will start this year, either, despite the Economy Ministry's optimism with regard to the projects worth some 2bn euros.

Secosan says that after a year when companies only thought of survival, 2010 will be a year of caution. "(...) I believe this caution about costs at companies will maintain, but I do not believe we'll see redundancy programmes similar with last year's," Secosan also says.

Siemens' boss says the situation generated by the crisis in many fields could have been improved had European funds been used, but because of last year's political instability this financing resource was largely left untouched.

"The crisis reached us later and this is why when economies around us were falling, things were still working out domestically and many had the impression nothing would change. In 3-6 months, it reached us, too, and amid the political instability a lot of money, particularly European funds, was not spent, which could have made the difference for many fields," Secosan also said.