“It’s been done online before, but never physically, in the same room”

Florica Chiriţă, the president of CCIAT (Timiş Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture), spoke at PRESSALERT LIVE about the challenge of organizing the International Business Forum (IBF), a first in the business world and at which giant companies from participating countries.

“Now I went to internationalization because we are organizing a national and even international premiere, I can say, a forum with seven countries. It has never been organized anywhere, it is physical. If I knew what I was getting myself into, this wouldn’t have happened. From January we started to travel, to go to the Turks, to the Serbs. They are Turkey, Serbia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Bosnia Herzegovina and Romania. At the Regional Business Center. We did not imagine that there would be 32 Serbian companies, 34 companies from Turkey… so there are a lot of people. More than 150 companies from Romania signed up from all over the country. I am not only from Timiş county. From absolutely the whole country. We have many officials. I convinced, where I walked, to come not only the representatives of the chambers of commerce, but also the central authorities. We have ambassadors coming. It’s not just protocol. The ambassadors, those who come, came with companies after them. I visited the German ambassador… The moment I saw that the ambassador emphasized the Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce and focused on them with the companies, I said okay, I was glad that we met, and in the moment when you can come with companies, we invite you to the Chamber of Commerce, to the International Forum. Those ambassadors you see came with big companies. I give an example, Turkish Airlines is coming, very big companies, which not everyone was bringing”, said Florica Chiriţă at PRESSALERT LIVE.

The event will start tomorrow, on Europe Day, and will last two days (May 9-10), at the Regional Business Center in Timisoara.

“So far I’m glad that everything worked as it should and I didn’t run for nothing. So far we have 164 Romanian companies and 96 foreign companies. That’s what I said was a premiere. Online has been done before, but never physically, in the same room. Apart from the fact that we make the Romanians meet, each one will have three or four partners from Romania. They write to us, we have a platform behind them, and they write to the Turks that they want the Serbs, the Serbs with the Italians, the Italians with the Germans. I don’t know what will be there. It will be what it will be. My opinion is that the number of foreign companies in Timiş will increase exponentially. From my point of view, companies that export will grow”, added the first Romanian woman president of a chamber of commerce.

The CCIAT activity will continue to be rich in 2024 and after the IBF. “We still have an economic mission in Australia, where we are 28 companies. Know that each company that participates in this mission, with the help of the embassy there and with CCIAT, have at least three discussion partners for this.

China, Japan. Many, you will see… In Japan I can say that the Japanese are not dying for our products, but we are convinced that we will have three or four collaborations. It is enough to have 12 companies that go. America, USA, sometime around September. We did New York very often, Washington. Now we are moving a bit towards Canada, because we had a lady economically attached in Serbia, who is extraordinary and who knows how to help the business environment and now she is in Canada. We have her there, we know for sure that there will be business”, added Chiriţă.

Asked if she was tempted to enter politics, the CCIAT president replied that “I would never enter politics. It’s not my sector, I don’t like politics. I received invitations to political events… I’d rather stay here where I can be awarded. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent through the Prefecture a distinction for the president of the CCIAT, a medal for internationalization. And I don’t even know the minister…”.

About the less heard voice of the business environment in the country’s politics, Florica Chiriţă explained: “I’m very sorry, but if you listened a little, voices from the chamber system… every time they say that we are actually the only entity that has this right through -a law To represent the business environment and to lobby for the business environment. We are always present with the problems of the business environment… We, the Chamber of Commerce of Romania, are somewhere left behind. Unlike other states… We put pressure. If you remember, we started the administrative organization, which is extremely important. We hump the business environment (…) I heard Mr. Daraban. Yes, they agreed, but after the elections, to reorganize in the form of 15 counties or regions. It’s natural and it’s normal… You’ll see, after the elections, we won’t give up until this happens.”

About what he would change if he had the power to immediately impose laws, Chiriţă talked about: “Territorial reorganization, that would be mandatory. Because, as I said, entrepreneurship will slowly fall. I don’t know who will keep behind so many county councils and so on. There are vice-presidents and mayors, vice-mayors, secretaries and secretaries and cars and everything. Then there must be once, I have a problem with predictability, so there must be stability. I’m still talking from the perspective of the business environment. There are situations in which we do not have the ministries prepared so that the time to solve the problems of the business environment is very short. You can’t wait for a certificate, you can’t wait for a license, you can’t wait for months. You can’t do something like that. The ministry must be capable people, they are even now, but something must be changed”.

“I would very much go towards dual education. Very much. Here we have to work and work with specialists. If we don’t have them, let’s bring them from outside. But what we have, we have very little. Concreted in certain areas. Brasov works very well. We in Timișul are functioning very well, but otherwise dual education does not exist at the level it should be at. Of course, we are looking in our garden, at the companies that are not supporting to export. At least it hurts me a lot when I see that we import refrigerators, and we were somewhere up there. It is not possible to bring a company here that makes everything that means motor cars, etc. And go beyond and then import the finished product again”, said Florica Chiriță.