Financial Press Review, 13 May

The main topics of today’s financial press are the much expected technical overcoming of the meltdown, cheaper Fondul Proprietatea shares and more expensive potatoes.

Under the headline ‘Head of Statistics – most important man in Romania’, the Ziarul Financiar reads that ‘after two years of economic downfall, Romania is technically no longer in financial turmoil’.

‘In spite of the optimism that politicians have shown, businessmen are still reluctant to say that the economy is heading uphill’, the newspaper reads.

‘Economic growth is still having problems, after the fiscal adjustment from last year had a strong impact on consumers. The economy is going to need some time to recover’.

One factor that could contribute to the economic resuscitation is European funds.

‘Hire competent people for European projects if you want European money!’ a Ziarul Financiar headline reads.

Apart from the shortage of qualified personnel and the frozen positions, another important aspect is that civil servants are not motivated to absorb European funds, the daily reads.

The Bursa prints an article entitled ‘Turning compensation securities into FP shares delayed’.

‘Government and Stock Exchange investors fight from a distance on price of FP shares’, the Ziarul Financiar reads.

‘FP shares – biggest fall since listed – under 0.5 RON yesterday’.

‘the Government will not push shares on the market yet in order not to pressure the prices even more. (…) The problem of resuming compensations for those abusively deprived of their properties with FP shares, as well as the evolution of the securities at the Stock Exchange, are closely being watched by the Government, since, at this rate, the Government might run out of shares before compensating everybody’.

From the Ziarul Financiar we learn that the law which allows for land owners to be overcharged unless they work their fields, which has been ardently supported by several MPs, will probably remain only a bill.

‘There are approximately 1-2 million unused hectares, 150 000 of which are owned by foreigners. Romania has even exported subsidies, because many Italians, Germans, Austrians and Hungarians have bought land and are receiving financial aid from the state, although they have never planted anything on it.

The Curierul Naţional opens with ‘The truth about potato price rise’.

In the past 4 months potato prices have increased by 30 percent, after last year’s 45 percent rise.

Minister of Agriculture Valeriu Tabără claims that ‘there will definitely be a good harvest on the market’. Dragoş Frumosu, President of the National Federation of Trade Unions in Agriculture, estimates that this year’s harvest is not going to be very big.

‘Prices will not fall this year or in the following period. Romania has made many mistakes, especially when seeds that were not compatible with our soil were imported’.

It is impossible to have lower prices when it is stores, which only sell import products, that dictate the price, the head of the National Federation of Trade Unions in Agriculture explained.

‘If prices stay swollen on the international market, then prices will continue to rise. Romanian producers will try to obtain as much as they can, and, if they don’t, they are going to sell their products abroad, where prices are higher’.

‘Then we are going to import the same Romanian products at a higher price, that is typical of us. We produce, but we import for a bigger price’, Dragoş Frumos stated for the Curierul Naţional.


Translated by: Gabriela Lungu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University