“We dream of support for the SMEs from the state.” Info-Prim Neo interview with Eugen Roscovan, president of the Small Business Association

[ - How was 2009 for the small businesses?] - In 2009, we finished the mass protest rallies and achieved certain results. We managed to convince the former Parliament to extend the period of validity of the entrepreneur's patent until 2017. I want to say that this is a good result, but we have a yet a lot of work to do. [ - You obtained a concession from the former government. What's next?] - Of course, this concession from the former government was important to us. We made many compromises and accepted the set of amendments to Law No. 93 on the entrepreneur's patent as we thought that more amendments would be introduced later so as to adapt the legislation to the economic conditions. Our presentiment that the economic situation will worsen came true. A recession in small business started to be felt back in 2007, when the demand for goods decreased. The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Moldova are now stagnant. Though they say we have 41,000 SMEs in our country, these are only official statements as over 30% of them make no profit. In fact, this means that they do not work. The other companies try hard to keep their employees and partners, but do not do great economic activity for the simple reason that there is no demand and no economic stimuli, while the people's purchasing power is very low. [ - You tabled a number of proposals to the new government. Will they remain on paper or the authorities will start solving entrepreneurs' problems?] - We hope there will be made changes. We formulated proposals for the government, but of course we will not sit and wait for solutions. Many economic entities submit questions to the Ministry of Economy. They receive formal answers like “this is in accordance with the law”. However, the authorities never bring these people together to listen to their wishes. [ - Do you intend to continue fighting bureaucracy?] - The excessive regulations always put the entrepreneurs in a dubious situation. These traps are often omissions, but also intentional insertions aimed at keeping the entrepreneurs under control as any regulation that says a certain activity is not governed is close to imposing fines, which are rather high in our country. What happens next? The economic entity tries to come to an agreement with the inspection bodies and consequently we witness corruption. There is even a rough calculation showing that more than 30 million lei a year do not reach the state budget only because certain areas of activity are not regulated by the law on the entrepreneur's patent. This is deplorable. [ - How will be 2010 for the entrepreneurs in your opinion?] - Unfortunately, I'm not a clairvoyant, but knowing the inertia of bureaucracy and how unwilling the public servants are to accept changes, we can only say that we are optimistic that 2010 will be better. We hope changes will be made, the proposals submitted by the businesspeople will be taken account of, certain government decisions will be abrogated and the SMEs will breathe easier. We dream of support for the SMEs from the state. The state budget does not now include resources for the SMEs and we cannot speak about the development of the small businesses. There are also other problems that arouse our concern: as there is permanent bureaucracy and no financing and the problems faced by the entrepreneurs are not dealt with, there will not be much work for us to do. In the U.S., the EU and the CIS, the SMEs create about 70-80% new workplaces a year. The promises that the entrepreneurial activity will be liberalized make us hope that things will improve. [ - Will the small businesses stage protests in 2010?] - I hope we will not need protests if the proposals submitted by the local entrepreneurs are accepted and some of their problems are solved, or they will be at least stimulated. Neither the entrepreneurs, not me personally consider that the protests are the best solution. That was an extreme solution as all the other solutions were used up and we could only take to the streets. The entrepreneurs have a constructive attitude. They always wanted to change things so that both of the sides get advantages. I'm sure that after the long period of protests, the enterprises have changed. We will be making effort to solve the problems by amicable ways, by social dialogue so as to preserve the workplaces and the sources of livelihood.