Authorities and Crisis
Last fall I visited Spain and China and I was amazed by their authorities’ attitude regarding the crisis.
Although I had visited Madrid just a year before and I found it to be a clean and harmoniously built city, I was impressed by the high level of investments in infrastructure. At almost every turn, you could see a major boulevard, square or building getting restored or pavements, telecommunication networks or utilities being replaced. During a conversation with the authorities, I was told that this was their anti-crisis policy. They were making important investments in infrastructure in order to limit the devastating effects of unemployment.
Instead of paying an unemployment tax of 1 Euro, we pay 2 Euros for investments in infrastructure and we avoid paying 3 euros the next day, as unemployment wages. I believe that this could be a model or even one of the solutions that the Government should implement in order to stop the alarming growth of unemployment.
In China, a country that I visited 3 times in the past 5 years, I was impressed by the largeness of infrastructural development, witch comes as no surprise from a country that, during the so called crisis period, manages to register an economic growth of 6-7%.
If, during the first period of the crisis, the USA backed up it’s financial system with 2.000 billion dollars, China invested 500 billion dollars in rural infrastructure, thus encouraging internal consumership and enlarging access to civilization for a significant part of it’s population.
I was also impressed by the quality of the airports and the very modern fleet of Chinese airline operators, not to mention the grand urban renewals, districts for millions of inhabitants, in witch the construction begins only after finishing the infrastructure and the installation of utilities. At this rate, I believe that, in less than a decade, China might become an important competitor for the 1st place, occupied by USA’s economy.
Drawing a parallel between this countries and what is happening in Romania, meaning that the impressive debt related to the Romanian economy’s potential is not able to cover the holes in financing the budgetary or pension system, we can evaluate the quality of institutional management of Romanian authorities.
It is true that the crisis was not a local one, but, to quote an old saying: „If the frost was to come anyway, who stopped us from putting another coat on?” .
Dr. ec. Adrian Crivii, FRICS, MAA