Arhivă :: Publicaţia 33/2005 :: The Point

Income taxes reintroduced in the field of IT could be the result of the state budget lacks, generated by the chaotic fiscal policy of the Alliance at power.

Reactions have not been positive, highlighting prospects of diminishment of the IT sector in Romania.

Mircea Pantea, director of an IT company in Mureş county, criticized the measure of tax reduction for incomes in IT firms. "Firstly, only the specialists in Informatics may receive tax exemption. In an IT company, other positions are taken by economists, or other professions as well. We used to employ and aerospace engineer. This creates diversity", according to Mircea Pantea. The IT field has developed in Romania mainly due to reduced personnel costs, as compared to the West. "The field of IT in Romania grew on the export of services. Inland needs wouldn?t have got us this far", declared Pantea. Thus, reintroduction of income tax will have a negative long-term effect, by turning Romania into an expensive labour market. "Foreigners will ask themselves whether China or the Unkraine might offer a more favorable environment for the export IT services. In order not to lose investors? interest and in order to increase living standards, fiscal measures should ease", added Pantea. On short term, salaries will decrease.

"In 2001, when the tax exemption was decided, the exodus was thought to have been brought to a halt. But this was the result of the crash of the dot.com myth, which created an excess on the IT labour market. Dot.com brought an artificial increase in the field and when it collapsed, it generated a serious seism. Now, the field of IT is settling on more solid bases in Europe and the USA. When specialists are needed in the West, the migration will start again", thinks Mircea Pantea.

Jurassic Park Reloaded at Petru Maior University?

In Tîrgu Mureş there are three powerful software companies and plenty of smaller but stable companies. Paradoxically, this is not due to the universities. "Higher education lacks quality. A graduate that comes to my company needs a year of training on my expense."

Another problem is the difficult access to Tîrgu Mureş. This is mainly the fault of the County Council, which missed a good start in modernising the Tîrgu Mureş Airport. Cluj and Sibiu are already ahead of us. Foreign collaborators have tried coming here, but the difficult, indirect access made them give up. What thrives here, are the specialised IT magazines.