Founding of companies with foreign capital hits 18 year low in Romania

The number of companies to be registered in Romania using foreign capital fell to an 18 year low in 2016, according to the National Trade Registry Office (ONRC). The figure dropped to just 5,348, which was down from the 5,831 set up in 2015. The biggest number of companies with foreign capital to be founded in a single year was 15,000, with that record having been set in 2007 as the economies of Europe catapulted towards the financial crisis on the back of overly-generous lending and unrealistic pricing of assets. The total volume of share capital of the companies established in 2016 was $40m. Since 1991, a total of 209,000 companies were set up with foreign capital in the country, of which more than 43,000 featured Italian capital.