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TÜV Austria has been active in Romania for one year with a branch of its own. Reality exceeded the plans many times. And the boom continues.
During the dark days of Ceausescu and command economy Romania was considered as the poorhouse of Europe. Headlines appeared only when the conducator had yet another city quarter reduced to rubble and ash. Outsize government buildings or wide boulevards were to replace the historic city cores. As we all know history was faster. Nearly 20 years later Rumania is in the news again – as the country with the most dynamic economy in Europe. All the budgets from Brussels are used for building, renovation and investment. And that in considerable amounts: The EU financial plan promises Romania more than 30 billion Euro by way of subsidies for reconstruction till 2013. A condition for the shower of subsidies is that the government in Bucharest can put up the same amount again according to the system of co-financing. ”The entire country is in an unbelievable euphoric mood“, that’s how Adolf Morgenbesser describes the situation in the Carpathian country. There is a labour shortage, the sky over Bucharest is full of construction cranes, the order books are full. Mr Morgenbesser is responsible in TÜV AUSTRIA for the development of TÜV AUSTRIA ROMANIA SRL, which opened its first office in February of last year. The originally three employees have increased to 19 in 12 months. And there is the same number again of free contractors who mainly work for the Romanian branch of TÜV. “We reached our three-year goals of the business plan after 12 months”, the person in charge of developments abroad states not without pride. TÜV AUSTRIA managed to get into a position in Romania in a few months which other competitors cannot reach after working the market for years. Austria’s high share
One third of the foreign investments in Romania comes from Austria, although the Alpine republic is only one third of the country in size and has no common border. A symposium of Außenwirtschaft Österreich provides convincing figures: At present there are 4.200 Austrian partnerships operating here already, which invested approx. 10 billion Euro. 130.000 Romanians are in the meantime working for Austrian branches. The purchase of the mineral oil group Petrom by OMV, which invests between 800 million and one billion Euro in Romania annually, and the acquisition of the Banca Comerciala Romana S.A. (BCR), the biggest Romanian bank, by the Austrian Erste Bank have considerably swelled the Austria account of the investment statistics. It is this amount of big and small Austrian companies in the Romanian market which represents an enormous potential of orders for the foreign branch of TÜV AUSTRIA. “Many of the investors are clients of TÜV AUSTRIA, who asked us to accompany them to Romania “, that’s how Adolf Morgenbesser describes the initial situation. TÜV AUSTRIA therefore was not acting at random. The two refineries of the OMV branch Petrom offer a huge field of activity for pressure and boiler specialists. Petrom is at present carrying out an intensive investment programme in the process plants of Petrobrazi in Ploesti and Arpechim in Pitesti (total capacity of millions of tons of crude oil per year). And in this context safety is a topic which was never dealt with so intensively in these plants than during the last two years. Networkers
The demand for certification services grew much more than expected. It turned out that the demand in the field of certifications amongst the Romanian companies by far exceeds the supply at present. “Romanian companies who want to into the EU area need quality standards“, Mr Morgenbesser explains the demand for all forms of auditing. In the process TÜV is gathering the fruits of a strategy which was followed for all steps of internationalisation. According to Mr Morgenbesser “Who wants to do business in a foreign market must work with the citizens of the market“. This was even more urgent in Romania. “Romanians are very touchy about anything which could be interpreted as paternalism“ says Mr Morgenbesser, who spends about one week per month in Bucharest. For the set-up phase Johannes Salcher is the only Austrian there in a managing function, all the other employees of TÜV AUSTRIA Romania are Romanian citizens. Even the top job will pass on to Romanian managers after the company has been consolidated. According to Mr Morgenbesser “Romanians are great networkers“. „Who wants to get something regulated should know someone.” And who is booking orders should know someone who knows someone. ”We were lucky to find two very experienced employees right away who knew the market and its protagonists inside out“, the TÜV AUSTRIA engineer told us. The new employees ensured a quick degree of awareness of TÜV AUSTRIA Romania in the sector. Traditional management methods will dry up here without any effect. Adolf Morgenbesser talks about first attempts of finding staff via head-hunters: “I had to deal with applicants aged 25 to 30, who had absolutely no experience in the sector and asked for triple the normal salary.“ The Austrians only were successful in finding employees when they began to ask around amongst acquaintances of the Romanian colleagues and clients: “All of a sudden we had interested people who we could work with.“
212 km of motor highwaysThe economic boom of Romania is powered by gigantic infrastructure projects. It is driven by the cornucopia of Brussels. The billions of subsidies are to get a country whose infrastructure only exists on paper nearer to the EU 15. The tasks are gigantic. There are 220 km of motor highways to be found in the entire country, of which one fourth is always closed. According to the infrastructure plan there should be 1.800 km by 2020. The city administration of Bucharest is working on a general overhaul of the city. 160 main roads are being freshly asphalted. Bridges, fly-overs and underpasses are being built and tram rails are being replaced. 20 inner city parking houses with a capacity of 14.400 parking places are to provide space in a chaos which makes it nearly impossible to transfer anything over several districts during the day. Crossing the city, for which one needed 30 minutes in 1990, takes three to four hours today.
The fulfilment of demand and the new financial possibilities leads to a GDP growth of 5-8 % annually. The Austrian trade delegate in Bucharest, Walter Friedl, practically waxes lyrical when he talks about the “opportunities for Austrians in this country: “We find ourselves at present in a time frame in which the demand by far exceeds the supply. The markets have not yet been divided up.“ And he urges the local decision makers to hurry up: “Even small businesses have all chances here. For the junior boss of an installation business all doors are wide open. He can actually go and pick the construction site.“ The biggest obstacle for growth is the lack of skilled workers. 500.000 workers are missing in the construction industry alone. The Romanian labour market service is already touring Spain and Great Britain to fetch home at least some of the two million exile workers through information campaigns. The resonance is reluctant in the best case, although the wages are rising rapidly. The average net salary is 300 – 500 Euro outside of , and the civil servants are mainly responsible for the low level. In other economic areas money plays a minor role at present. A trained Romanian with a knowledge of foreign languages working in the middle management of a company earns at least as much as an Austrian in a comparable position at home. Skilled workers can in the meantime also enjoy a wage level which can measure up to that of their Austrian colleagues. In 2007 the Romanian wages rose on average by 20 %, with an inflation rate of 6.8 % a genuine increase of the actual earnings. The highest salaries are paid in banking, engineering, accountancy and marketing, where Romania is nearly at EU level. ExpansionTÜV AUSTRIA Romania is at present in the process of developing activities beyond the capital of Bucharest in the entire country. After starting in a suburb of Bucharest on 60 m2 TÜV AUSTRIA Romania has had since summer the main office in Bucharest and two outposts at the refineries in Ploesti and Pitesti. Branches in Temesvar and Craiova were opened already, more are planned. “We want to develop a covering network in the entire country for our academy and certification activities to become more independent from the developments in the capital city,” Mr Morgenbesser explains the early offensive. Besides the demand for training and certification knowledge was immense in the Romanian provinces, and according to Mr Morgenbesser “there are hardly any providers”. Many companies with foreign participation settled along the border of , from where the home locations in can still be reached by the lorries in one day. “We sense an overwhelming demand for technical services of our company in these regions,“ that’s how the TÜV employee describes the way into the future. Mr Morgenbesser is pinning his hope especially on the setting-up of a department for special testing technology, which is to be pushed forward soon. In it inspections of pipelines and pressure vessels are carried out by digital radiography or sound emission tests without the need of switching off the plants. This will require major investments, but Mr Morgenbesser is confident that “a quick return on investment can be achieved in this market.“ E-Mail: office@tuv-austria.ro
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