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Competition Council head: Joint efforts afoot to speed up listing of Hidroelectrica, other majority state-owned companies
The capacity to attract capital flows depends on supply, and in this respect we will all do our best to speed up the listing of Hidroelectrica and, possibly, of other companies where the state holds majority stakes, Competition Council president Bogdan Chiritoiu said today at a press conference dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the listing of Fondul Proprietatea (FP).
"Fondul Proprietatea's beginnings were met with skepticism. I remember that my boss at that time was skeptical about this method of compensating the former property owners. What I understood from these years is that the main benefit the Fund has brought to the economy has come from the economic governance. This is where the Fund was very useful for us as an institution and for the Romanian economy in general, because it improved transparency, it slimmed down certain practices in state-owned companies and sometimes helped us not to throw money out the window for expensive restructuring programs. If you put more money into something that fares poorly it won't work better and you will only lose more money," Chiritoiu specified.
According to him, it is important that a transparent regulatory framework is created in Romania to allow companies to make the best decisions.
"Fondul Proprietatea is also present in other state-owned companies that are doing far from well: the Romanian Post Company, the Oltenia Energy Complex. The discussions we had over the years with FP helped us to correctly size the support measures for these companies. There have been some tensions between our and FP's vision of the situation of companies in a monopolistic position, such as the Constanta Port, or the Bucharest Airport. It's the state's job to improve our regulatory mechanisms for monopoly situations," said the president of the Competition Council.