Setting up a simple sole trader business requires at least three institutions and many queues

Ziarul Financiar starts the campaign "De-bureaucratise the economy". Read today how complicated it is for an individual to set up the simplest type of business: sole trader (PFA in Romanian).

Getting documents notarised, obtaining permits from the owners' association to use the space as a registered headquarters (if you open the pretzel stand on the ground floor of a block of flats), a file with at least eight documents to submit to the Territorial Trade Registry Office (ORCT).

"This procedure is abstract: all these papers and applications. I don't even know how to fill in the forms. I would have expected to find a map with every step that I have to follow and every counter I have to go to and especially how much I have to pay. You cannot make a clear calculation of costs and time," says Andrei looking clueless, waiting in line at a counter of the Bucharest Trade Registry Office to set up a sole trader business for financial brokerage.

Asked "At what stage of the procedure are you?," he answered: "I have no idea! It's a total mess!"

The sole trader business should be the simplest way of doing business independently for individuals, with the average time of setting up a sole trader business being two weeks.

But the ordeal does not end with the procedure of setting up a sole trader business. Right after a sole trader gets the certificate of registration with the Trade Registry, they need to make several more trips, to the National Pension House, The National Healthcare House and the Financial Administration to submit statements, and pay taxes on a monthly basis after the first quarter.