Financial Press Review, 27 June

The consequences of the regionalization, the decline of investments, the Danube potential and the unjustified salaries of some state banks are some of the numerous topics covered in today’s financial press review.

The Ziarul Financiar headlined: ‘Regionalization will no longer happen: UDMR vehemently rejected Basescu's proposal.’

The same newspaper published an article by the editor of the magazine Business Magazine, Dorin Oancea, which stated:

‘I did now see or hear about any conducted economic and social study to analyze all the aspects of plotting the new administrative boundaries. (...) I do not nohow believe any story of reducing bureaucracy or eliminating corruption, but I think instead that there will emerge eight to ten tycoons with suites and personal interests transcending any local or regional interest.’

Under the heading ‘EU leaders approved the Danube Strategy, 100 billion euros project’, the Ziarul Financiar specified that it was a Romanian-Austrian initiative launched in 2008.

Curierul Naţional opened with the title ‘How to use Danube’s huge potential?’

‘Danube Strategy has chances, but it will not generate benefits by itself, we must work.’

‘Although in 1939 Romania had the most transport ships of all countries bordering the Danube river, its transport potential halved over the past 70 years,’ the newspaper noted.

Under the heading ‘How can we re-enter recession if we didn’t even go out of it?’, the Bursa published an article in which we read :

‘The lack of profound economic restructuring and the extraordinary burden of taxation led to a further annual fall in the gross fixed capital formation in the first quarter of 2011, 2.2%, after a decline of 4.7% in the previous quarter, which is the eighth consecutive decline. These are the investments that should draw us out from the crisis,’ the newspaper moted.

The Săptămâna Financiară headlined: ‘“Strawberry pickers” have become the most important foreign investors.’

‘Workers from abroad transferred into the country in the period January-April 2011almost 1.1 billion euros - at 2.5 times the foreign direct investments of 444 million.’

The Bursa piblished the opinion of the Secretary General of the Businessmen Association in Romania, Cristian Parvan.

‘Our economy will not be able to provide jobs for unlimited periods of time and the only remaining alternative on the labor market is regular jobs.’

‘Businesses need incentives and to be exempt from tax on reinvested profit, because in other countries this is normal while in our country it doesn’t even exist.’

‘If this had been implemented by four to five years ago, companies would have passed more easily passed through the crisis,’ the article in the Bursa quoted Florea Pîrvu,Vice President of the National Council of Private Small and Medium Enterprises in Romania.

The Ziarul Financiar opened with an article entitled ‘ Salaries of state banks came upfront. Eximbank CEO - 27 000 euro per month, CEC CEO - 7100 euro.”

‘The biggest ever monthly salary in Romania confirmed by an official document is that of Ionut Costea, Eximbank CEO. He won 1 million lei for 10 months in 2009.’

‘There is a huge wage gap between the Eximbank CEO and the CEC Bank CEO , since the CEC is the forth place in the system according to the assets, while the Eximbank struggles in the middle of the billboard, number 20.’

‘Ionuţ Costea from Eximbank rivals to the revenue collected with a top private banker, although Eximbank has the same results, both in terms of assets and profit.’

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