Cezar Rapotan, Arabesque: We do not need the state's help

Cezar Rapotan says the private environment can make it on its
own and the state should learn from private entities how to achieve
an efficient restructuring.
While construction companies are waiting for the state to
rescue the industry, Rapotan states that “fortunately” the
government’s anti-crisis steps have not upset the progress of the
company’s business. Asked how the anti-crisis programme impacted
his business this year, Rapotan stated: “I do not even know how to
answer this… Unfortunately, governmental anti-crisis steps have
not helped the business develop or fortunately, anti-crisis steps
have not stood in our way. At this moment, we do not need and are
not expecting any direct support from the government”.
Arabesque, Romania’s biggest distributor of construction
materials, is also present on foreign markets, in Moldova, Ukraine,
Bulgaria and Serbia and has total turnover worth 550m euros and
5,000 employees, 3,300 of whom in Romania. The company has
dramatically cut expenses starting as early as last September, when
sales started falling. By comparison, during that period NBR
governor and the government stated there were no premises for a
sudden landing of the economy.
Though he runs the second biggest private Romanian firm,
Rapotan is much more discreet compared with the best-known Romanian
billionaires, Dinu Patriciu, Ion Tiriac or Ioan Niculae of
Interagro and he rarely gives interviews.
He directly owns Arabesque together with his wife, in a period
when many Romanian entrepreneurs are setting up offshore companies
in Cyprus to avoid the Romanian red tape.
The businessman believes the only way the government can
currently help the economy is by conducting massive restructuring
operations and cutting the deficit. Since the beginning of the
year, the state has shed just around 2,500 jobs, while private
companies have had to let over 200,000 employees go. Moreover, the
state’s headcount expenses have risen and it had to borrow money to
pay wages. Rapotan also says the government should now act like a
privately held company and axe costs.
Rapotan believes the biggest problem the company has been
coping with was the sudden credit crunch, which has rapidly frozen
real estate projects. Arabesque turnover dropped by around 20% in
the first eight months of this year compared with the same time
last year.