Companies in Romania expect a challenging year, marked by cautious optimism and a focus on managing risks and costs: Deloitte

Companies in Romania expect a challenging year, marked by cautious optimism and a focus on managing risks and costs, according to the Deloitte 2025 Romania CFO Survey, conducted at the end of last year among approximately 130 Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) based in the country. Most of the Romanian CFOs predict increase in revenues for this year (58 percent), but their share has been continuously declining over the past years, from 73 percent in 2021. Their expectations are in line with their Central European peers’.

The study underscores a significantly higher level of cautiousness about capital expenditures (CAPEX) compared to the previous year and to the regional consensus. The share of those who anticipate CAPEX increase has dropped from 46 percent in the previous edition to 34 percent, while the proportion of those who expect decrease has risen sharply from 19 percent in the previous year to 33 percent.

When it comes to the number of employees, 26 percent of the local CFOs predict an increase, a significant drop from 37 percent last year, while 28 percent forecast a decline in employment, up from 18 percent in the last survey.

Risk aversion has intensified, with 87 percent of respondents agreeing that 2025 is not the time to take on greater balance sheet risk, in line with regional trends. Top risks for Romanian businesses identified by the survey are related to reserved economic outlook, which will impact demand both domestically (44 percent of respondents expect a decrease) and from abroad (33 percent expect foreign demand reduction), increasing regulations (mentioned by 44 percent of the respondents), talent shortage (39 percent) and geopolitics (35 percent). Among the most severe geopolitical risks, the conflict in Ukraine was mentioned by almost half of the respondents (47 percent).

Inflation is also a major concern for Romanian companies, even if their projected rates have been decreasing from 11.2 percent two years ago, to 5.4 percent in this survey, which is more pessimistic than the National Bank of Romania and the National Institute of Statistics estimations. For the euro area, they estimate an inflation rate of 3.1 percent over the next 12 months. Romanian CFOs are aligned with their regional peers when it comes to their views on inflation, which are more cautious than those issued by national and international financial institutions and macroeconomists.

In this context, cost management is the main business priority, reflected by 37 percent of survey respondents. Other areas on which companies in Romania will focus in 2025 are organic growth (24 percent), followed by growth in existing markets (8 percent) and the introduction of new products and services (also 8 percent).

“Amid expected measures for decreasing the budget deficit, when we conducted this year’s survey, we also asked the Romanian CFOs about their expectations regarding the tax system. As expected, most of them foresee increases. They also see possible increase in cost of financing, due to the level of economic and political uncertainty. This explains partially their cautious approach to investments in Romania and is a reminder that the business environment needs political stability and legislative predictability more than anything else,” said Zeno Caprariu, Audit Partner, Deloitte Romania, and Leader of the CFO Programme in Romania.

The Deloitte 2025 Romania CFO Survey was conducted between September and October 2024. Local answers are compared to the aggregated data gathered from over 650 CFOs based in 14 Central European countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.