The Foreign Investors Summit came to an end on Thursday with the conferences dedicated to the IT&C and real Estate sectors. . Speakers from AmCham, Intel Romania, Cisco, Cluj IT Cluster, IBM, Colliers and JLL shared their insights, their in-depth sector knowledge and their tips and tricks for navigating Romania’s economy. 

Alexandru Tulai, President of the Cluj IT Cluster, advised the authorities to that profit that is reinvested into R&D and innovation should be exempt from taxes.

Marian Gheorghe, COO Delivery Center Romania, IBM, said that there are certain technological trends that still haven’t reached their maturity in Romania, among which loud, big data and mobile.

The trials and tribulations related to a tech-savvy workforce were also discussed in depth in the IT conference. For instance,  approximately 75 percent of the employees in the Intel Software Development Center are part of the Y Generation, said Monica Ene- Pietrosanu, country manager of the center.

“We have in Europe two main problems with the labor force. The first is related to our technical capabilities. We still have no development centers to train tech-savvy labor force. Secondly, the Y generation is on the move,” said Ilinca Paun, managing director Colliers International Romania.

Dorin Pena, GM Cisco Romania, explained that “cyber-security has been very overlooked until now”. He cautioned that “nowadays it costs just USD 10 to rent a network of infected computers to launch a cyber-attack” and oil&gas, electronics and pharma are the most “at-risk” sectors for such attacks.

During the Real Estate conference, Gijs Klomp, managing director Jones Lang LaSalle, described the real estate market in Romania as “under-developed”: “Looking at Hungary, it is currently such a risky market that it is better to look at Romania. Still, Romania is the least concentrated market in the region from the point of view of industrial property”.

One of the capital’s main problems, according to Marcin Lapinsky,president Skanska Properties Romania, is the subway.

“For me as a developer, it is crucial to have subway. This is why the Central-West area is very interesting. I would also see the city center as a main area of interest but it is expensive and difficult to enter and build long development.”

In spite of these problems, Romania’s real estate market is still full of potential.

“If we look at the top 100 BPOs worldwide, we see that only 30 percent have operations in the CEE, which means there is still a lot of potential”- Georgiana Andrei, director, Office & Retail Agency, Colliers International Romania

Andrei added that “since 2012, out of the total takeaway space, over 300,000 sqm were taken up by BPOs”.

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