Szeklerland’s economy: stagnant revenue, 9% lower profit and 3,300 fewer jobs

While the Ciuc area, the Gheorgheni area and Treiscaune de Sus achieved strong revenue growth, the decline in the Mureș area offset almost all of those gains.

As a result, the region’s total revenue remained essentially unchanged between 2022 and 2025, while profit and employment declined. The analysis combines indicators for the full company population, lessons from the 2017–2025 regional rankings and the 2025 TOP 50 lists covering Szeklerland as a whole.

Szeklerland’s economy in 2025

The dataset analysed covered 29,132 companies across the six regions in 2025. Together, they recorded:

•  RON 73.69 billion in revenue;

•  RON 5.13 billion in profit;

•  133,630 employees.

The Mureș area alone accounted for 57.5% of Szeklerland’s revenue, 56.4% of profit and 46.8% of employment. The region’s overall economic picture is therefore heavily influenced by the performance of large energy, utility, industrial and service companies registered in the Mureș area.

Revenue stagnated and profitability weakened

Between 2022 and 2025, the total revenue of companies across Szeklerland changed from RON 73.41 billion to RON 73.69 billion. The nominal increase of only 0.4% effectively means stagnation, especially because the figures are not adjusted for inflation.

Total profit fell over the same period from RON 5.63 billion to RON 5.13 billion, a decline of 8.8%. The profit-to-revenue ratio decreased from 7.67% to 6.97%. This means that businesses retained less profit from an almost unchanged aggregate level of revenue.

Employment fell from 136,932 to 133,630 people. The difference is 3,302 jobs, or 2.4%. The combined headcount loss in the Odorhei area and Lower Three Seats exceeded Szeklerland’s total net decline because Treiscaune de Sus and the Gheorgheni area partially offset the reduction.

Six regions, different economic paths

The differences between the areas are most visible in the changes between 2022 and 2025:

•  Revenue grew fastest in the Gheorgheni area, by 23.6%, followed by the Ciuc area at 21.3% and Treiscaune de Sus at 16.0%.

•  Revenue in the Mureș area declined by 6.0%; because of its large economic weight, this offset a substantial share of the growth achieved elsewhere.

•  Profit was lower than in 2022 in all six regions. The largest declines occurred in Treiscaune de Sus, at 38.1%, and in the Odorhei area, at 27.0%.

•  Employment exceeded its 2022 level only in Treiscaune de Sus, by 7.6%, and in the Gheorgheni area, by 0.7%. It fell by 9.4% in the Odorhei area and by 7.8% in Lower Three Seats.

The weight of the largest companies varies sharply between regions

In 2025, the fifty companies in Szeklerland’s aggregate revenue TOP 50 generated RON 30.26 billion, equal to 41.1% of the region’s total revenue. The profit TOP 50 represented RON 1.39 billion and 27.2% of total profit, while the fifty largest employers accounted for 30,375 people, or 22.7% of all jobs.

The aggregate Szeklerland TOP 50 is not the simple sum of the six regional TOP 50 lists: it selects the fifty largest companies from the entire region. The territorial composition of these rankings therefore directly shows where large-company performance is concentrated.

The Mureș area contributes 30 companies to the revenue ranking, 33 to the profit ranking and 27 to the employer ranking. Within the regional lists, revenue concentration is highest in Lower Three Seats, while employment concentration is strongest in Treiscaune de Sus.

Who defines Szeklerland’s corporate leaders?

The 2025 revenue ranking was led by E.ON ENERGIE ROMANIA SA with RON 8.79 billion, followed by DELGAZ GRID SA with RON 3.10 billion, BIO EEL SRL with RON 1.49 billion, ROMAQUA GROUP SA with RON 1.17 billion and AZOMURES SA with RON 1.15 billion. The first two companies alone generated 39.3% of the aggregate revenue TOP 50, while the first five accounted for 51.9%.

The first two places in the profit ranking were also held by E.ON ENERGIE ROMANIA SA and DELGAZ GRID SA, with RON 286.3 million and RON 132.7 million respectively. They were followed by FABRICA DE LAPTE BRASOV SA with RON 77.3 million, ROMAQUA GROUP SA with RON 52.1 million and GEDEON RICHTER ROMANIA SA with RON 37.4 million.

The largest employer was DELGAZ GRID SA with 5,463 employees, followed by ROMAQUA GROUP SA with 2,228, HIRSCHMANN AUTOMOTIVE TM SRL with 1,698, ZARAH MODEN SRL with 972 and AZOMURES SA with 942 employees. The two largest employers accounted for more than one quarter of the aggregate employer TOP 50 headcount.

Different industry profiles, shared pressure on profitability

The economic structure of the six regions is not uniform. In the Mureș area, energy and utilities – especially gas and electricity distribution – dominate large-company revenue. In the Gheorgheni area, mineral-water bottling and the food and beverage industry are decisive, while Lower Three Seats is shaped by dairy processing, the food industry, wood processing and packaging.

In the Ciuc area, tobacco wholesale has an exceptional weight alongside food, beverage and agricultural companies. In Treiscaune de Sus, the leading revenue company is linked to tyre trading, while agri-food, automotive and textile activities are also significant. In the Odorhei area, construction, building services, food and beverages and manufacturing together form a diversified structure.

Diversification reduces dependence on a single industry, but the general decline in profit between 2022 and 2025 shows that cost, financing and labour-market pressures affected almost every region.

Large economic scale, but the quality of growth is decisive

In 2025, Szeklerland represented almost RON 74 billion in company revenue and more than 133,000 jobs. Yet regional revenue stability was the result of two opposing trends: several smaller areas achieved strong growth, while revenue declined in the Mureș area. At the same time, both profit and employment weakened across Szeklerland as a whole.

The central question for the coming years is therefore not simply whether revenue will grow, but whether growth can deliver higher profitability, more stable jobs and stronger local supplier relationships. The performance of large companies is decisive, but the region’s economic resilience still depends on the condition of its much broader base of almost thirty thousand businesses.

The detailed 2025 Szeklerland company rankings can also be viewed separately:

•  Largest companies in Szeklerland by revenue – TOP 50

•  Largest employers in Szeklerland – TOP 50

•  Most profitable companies in Szeklerland – TOP 50

The other parts of the series presenting Szeklerland’s economic regions: Lower Three Seats, Ciuc area, Gheorgheni area, Treiscaune de Sus, Mureș area and Odorhei area.

Source and methodology: the omnibus.ro Szeklerland-wide and regional company rankings for 2017–2025, together with Ministry of Finance data available as of 30 June 2026. The aggregate Szeklerland indicators are the sums of data for Lower Three Seats, the Ciuc area, Treiscaune de Sus, the Gheorgheni area, the Mureș area and the Odorhei area. The Szeklerland TOP 50 contains the fifty largest companies in the entire region and is therefore not identical to the sum of the six regional TOP 50 lists. Industry grouping was based on the keywords in the companies’ omnibus.ro profiles and the identified primary activity. Financial values are nominal, are not adjusted for inflation and refer to companies registered in Szeklerland.