Financial Press Review, 25 March

European fund absorption, public acquisitions and Euro revival are just some of today’s topics in the financial press.

‘The Government wants to double the European fund absorption rate this year’, the Curierul Naţional reads in an article entitled ‘Government out of money to refinance EU projects’.

‘The hard times are yet to come for the Romanians who started projects finance with European funds, because the state does not have any money left for prefinancing, and refunds are only accepted if you file in documents at the European Commission to account for the way the money was spent’, the Ziarul Financiar reads.

Under the headline ‘Government’s bet for 2011: 3 billion Euro in European funds’, the daily notes that authorities have decided to ‘simplify refunds. Until now, the beneficiary had to come with 20 files to account for the money. Now they only need to bring one’.

The Curierul Naţional opens with the headline ‘Where are small-time entrepreneurs sore?’

‘Small and medium enterprises are barely keeping up with the day-to-day fiscal changes. Fiscal problems are the most pressing problems of Romanian entrepreneurs, Ovidiu Nicolescu, National Council of Private Small and Medium Enterprises President, considers.

‘7 out of 10 entrepreneurs want lower VAT social insurance quotas. (…) Businessmen also want interest and identical fines for delayed payments from authorities in public acquisitions and in fiscal reports’.

‘If the state cannot pay on time, then he should be charged, just like economic agents are. This is the reason the economy is not working as it should, the Council’s President emphasized’, the Curierul Naţional reads.

‘Public acquisition shock’, the Ziarul Financiar reads on the topic of the National Authority for Regulating and Monitoring Public Procurement’s intention to cancel all public acquisitions by state companies that have not joined the Electronic System of Public Procurement.

‘If they go through with it, this will cost billions of Euro’, the daily reads. ‘Much money, which would mean a significant amount for the budget’, the Curierul Naţional reads.

‘The RON – stronger and stronger’, a Bursa headline reads.

‘A 4 RON Euro, only a matter of time’, reads a Ziarul Financiar headline. ‘The appreciation of the RON in the past two months, behind which was the NBR, has gained popularity among foreign investors, who want to be a part of the ‘RON rally’.

‘Analysts do not expect the Euro to go below 4 RON’, the Bursa reads.

The Ziarul Financiar reads that, through an emergency ordinance, the Government will instill a national programme to build vegetables and fruit barns, which could take up between 500 and 5000 tons.

‘A 1000-ton barn will cost around 1 million Euro’, the daily quotes Mediafax.


Translated by: Gabriela Lungu
MA Student MTTLC, Bucharest University