Financial Press Review, 14 April

‘Why do we want houses if we can not afford them?’, the Curierul Naţional wondered in its opening edition. 70 percent of the Romanians want to buy a home, although the statistics showed that the rent was a very viable solution. In addition, 68 percent can not afford to pay a higher monthly rate of 300 euros and nor they have the 10,000 euros for a minimum down payment.

By comparison, the Curierul Naţional continued, the rent offers you mobility and spares you from other expenses, while the loan option turns you into an owner in decades.

The foreign investments have declined in February compared to the same month of last year, the Ziarul Financiar wrote, but the first two months combined had double profit than 2010. The explanation was the support of the foreign parent companies for their subsidiaries in Romania by providing funds.

The Ziarul Financiar added that the current account deficit might remain below 5 percent of the GDP this year, far from being a flaw as in 2007 and 2008.

Closer to everyday life, sugar and oil price raised, the Bursa headlined. Their explanation was a little surprising but thoroughly justified. The ethyl is introduced into gasoline, explained the President of the Romanian Association of Sugar Beet Growers, Ioan Armenean.

In its turn, the ethyl is made, in turn, from beet and maize, and that's why the price of sugar increased at the same time as the price of oil. Currently, a kilogram of sugar costs about 5 lei, while the price of sugar in hypermarkets a year ago was something around 2.3 lei.

Also the newspaper Bursa announced from the international news that this year the gold’s quotation may climb up to $ 1,600 an ounce.

The gold price could earn up to 13 percent in 2011 based on the investors’ demand, anticipated a well known British research company. The quotation of the precious metal had already noted, on 11 April, on the New York market, its historic high of $ 1.478 an ounce. The gold investments are generally considered as ‘safe havens’ against inflation.


Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University