Financial Press Review, 21 February

‘Labor Code - between smoke-producing unions and normality’– the CURIERUL NAŢIONAL headlines. Representatives of trade unions said that the changes of the current code is a new form of slavery, because the employer can anytime fire his staff and even hire other people on the next day.

Entrepreneurs, however, saluted the new form of the Labor Code, considering that in such way the performance will be the watchword.

‘The cars market started on profit after three years of decline’ – the ZIARUL FINANCIAR says. And yet, it is an unusual increase in the sales in January, because at this profit also helped the extension of the 2010 Jalopy program.

And the same ZIARUL FINANCIAL writes about the housing market noting that to the vast majority of the inhabitants of Bucharest, buying a new flat remains an almost impossible task. As for the real estate projects within the city, the studios’ prices begin at 60 000 euros.

The daily BURSAis being sold today with the supplement entitled ‘Tobacco’, dedicated to the cigarette smuggling combat, a supplement that includes a series of interviews with representatives of cigarettes manufacturers of our country.

They appreciate the state’s efforts to combat smuggling, but are not confident in its results because - they claimed - the catch is just a 5 percent of the illicit market in tobacco products.

Today at the editorship I also received our economic weeklies. Cigarette smuggling is also an opening subject in the CAPITAL, where the front page headlines: ‘20 million euros bribes annually smoked in customs.’ And smuggling is just one of the illegalities from the borders – added the CAPITAL: corruption and frauds at the borders, in their totality, costs the budget over one billion euros annually.

And also the CAPITAL notes that the private medical services market in our country is always growing, while the state medical system suffers because of the lack of money and will be subject to a drastic reorganization this year.

We conclude with the SĂPTĂMÂNA FINANCIARĂ, stating that ‘twice a year we will be informed about the private pension funds specific investment. The Supervisory Commission wants to force them to publish in detail on the websites the portfolio investments, at mid and end of the year.

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