Cezar Rapotan, Arabesque: We do not need the state's help

Cezar Rapotan says the private environment can make it on its own and the state should learn from private entities how to achieve an efficient restructuring.

While construction companies are waiting for the state to rescue the industry, Rapotan states that "fortunately" the government's anti-crisis steps have not upset the progress of the company's business. Asked how the anti-crisis programme impacted his business this year, Rapotan stated: "I do not even know how to answer this... Unfortunately, governmental anti-crisis steps have not helped the business develop or fortunately, anti-crisis steps have not stood in our way. At this moment, we do not need and are not expecting any direct support from the government".

Arabesque, Romania's biggest distributor of construction materials, is also present on foreign markets, in Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Serbia and has total turnover worth 550m euros and 5,000 employees, 3,300 of whom in Romania. The company has dramatically cut expenses starting as early as last September, when sales started falling. By comparison, during that period NBR governor and the government stated there were no premises for a sudden landing of the economy.

Though he runs the second biggest private Romanian firm, Rapotan is much more discreet compared with the best-known Romanian billionaires, Dinu Patriciu, Ion Tiriac or Ioan Niculae of Interagro and he rarely gives interviews.

He directly owns Arabesque together with his wife, in a period when many Romanian entrepreneurs are setting up offshore companies in Cyprus to avoid the Romanian red tape.

The businessman believes the only way the government can currently help the economy is by conducting massive restructuring operations and cutting the deficit. Since the beginning of the year, the state has shed just around 2,500 jobs, while private companies have had to let over 200,000 employees go. Moreover, the state's headcount expenses have risen and it had to borrow money to pay wages. Rapotan also says the government should now act like a privately held company and axe costs.

Rapotan believes the biggest problem the company has been coping with was the sudden credit crunch, which has rapidly frozen real estate projects. Arabesque turnover dropped by around 20% in the first eight months of this year compared with the same time last year.