Dilemma of state-run companies: political management with zero performance or professional management

The Romanian state is pressured from all sides to reorganise the companies under its management. Although the IMF asks for privatisations or bankruptcies and foreign investors want to bring the companies to the stock exchange, professional management or even for the sale of majority stakes to be resumed, the Romanian state hesitates to make concrete decisions.

However, the few managers of state companies who do know their field complain that the boards of directors, where the major decisions involving companies are made, have as members people who do not understand anything, but belong to the right party.

In 2009 the top ten state companies by losses posted losses of nearly 700 million euros, among which are CNH and Termoelectrica. The social costs that come with the restructuring of these companies have proven hard to take on by the authorities.

"We are trying to not waste any time, but we are progressing with small but sure steps. We are hoping to relaunch the privatisation process through the capital market," said the head of the Office for State States and Industry Privatisation (OPSPI), Victor-Vlad Cazană, at the Mediafax Talks about Restructuring Loss-Making Companies conference.

So "small, but steady" were the steps taken in this direction by the Romanian state that the last listing occurred in 2007, Transgaz's. Romgaz, Hidroelectrica and Nuclearelectrica have been waiting for years to be listed, but with the onset of the crisis, these plans remained at the stage of talks.