Unlike his counterparts in the West, whose visits abroad are almost always judged exclusively in terms of the value of the contracts they help seal for the companies of their countries, President Traian Băsescu has got almost nothing arranged for the Romanian business sector abroad.
On a trip to India, French President Nicholas Sarkozy yesterday
announced the signing by French companies of commercial contracts
worth 15 billion dollars. President Traian Băsescu, one year after
winning a second term in office, has zero results in this
department.
President Traian Băsescu did not bring along businesspeople in any
of the eight official or state visits he has had in 2010, and there
were zero contacts signed by Romanian companies abroad during such
visits.
The President has been reluctant to bring along local
businesspeople on his trips abroad over his six years in office,
unlike his counterparts in the West whose planes are filled with
businesspeople delegations first of all. In a world where the
battle over markets is becoming increasingly fiercer, the doors
that politicians opened are a weapon. The French President was
accompanied by 50 delegations of the most powerful French companies
on his trip to India alone.
“Every president takes businesspeople with him in his official
trips, but in our case it hasn’t happened,” comments Ioan Niculae,
shareholder of the biggest agricultural group in Romania, the
business of which stood at 310 million euros in 2009, who has never
accompanied the President in an official trip.