SMEs Would Like Taxation On Energy To Not Trickle Down

Representatives of the small and medium sized enterprises, or SMEs, would like the government to make sure the planned taxation of the natural gas, oil and electric power will not trickle into prices paid by the end-users, but stay with the companies in the energy sector.

"Though the price of oil dropped four times in the past months, the gasoline price went down only 20%, that of the natural gas went up, while that of the electrical power staid the same. This will result in many Romanian companies being forced out of the market, since their products turn out to be too expensive for the Romanian consumer," said the president of the National Council for SMEs Ovidiu Nicolescu.

The minister for Finance Gheorghe Pogea stated a few days ago that he was considering hiking the taxation on fuels.

While former minister for the Economy and Finance Varujan Vosganian stated last year that the Petrom oil company prices showed contempt for the end-user, since it extracted domestic oil at domestic production costs, but it sold it at international prices to Romanians customers. The Petrom net profit in 2007 reached some 278 million Euro, and the estimates for the 2008 profits are at some 130 million Euro.

Also, the director for Development in the Transelectrica power company Razvan Purdila recently stated that the price for electrical power could go up, since the company loses customers, as companies go bankrupt, while the production costs stay the same.