The 207 companies operated by the Romanian state have recorded revenues in the amount of 902 million euros in the first quarter of 2022, almost four times as much as in the same period of last year.
Impacted by the pandemic, the same companies had revenues of 243 million euros last year. This year brought expectations of a return to normal, but the present revenues are more than twice as much as the ones usually recorded by state- owned companies in the first three months of previous years.
The biggest energy producers in Romania, like hydro-based electricity producer Hidroelectrica or the nuclear power plant Nuclearelectrica, have seen massive spikes in income due to the ongoing energy crisis.
The state-owned companies, many of them energy producers, made payments of 1.57 billion euros from the new gains. Roughly 522 million euros went to the state budget, while the rest was cashed in by other investors. However, state- owned companies, including those managed by local authorities, still have debts of nearly 2 billion euros. The companies with the highest revenues are most likely not the ones that still deal with standing debts, but rather the ones that are still struggling on the market.
