Financial Press Review, 5 April

The Government’s commitments to the IMF, the perspective of reducing the social security contributions, the ‘First Home’ Scheme and the bid for televising the football national championship are some of the topics which have drawn the attention of the financial press.

‘The Executive bet in achieving an economic growth of 1.5 percent this year by continuing the upward trend of the exports, the gradual increase in the domestic demand and the rising absorption of European funds’, the Bursa wrote on the front page article entitled ‘We still are vulnerable to developments of international financial markets.’

The newspaper noted that the IMF forced the Government to cover the losses in the consolidated budget deficit of 30 state or local central companies and the securities of the Property Fund as well as the fact that the administration’s arrears should fall this year from 1.1 billion lei to 900 million.

The list of the companies monitored by the IMF has been extended by including nine other companies among which Tarom and the Romanian Post.

The weekly Economistul published an interview with our country’s IMF representative Mihai Tănăsescu under the headline ‘Macroeconomic discipline is not an IMF fashion brand, but a ... imperishable necessity.’ ‘The reform should focus on the state-owned companies, which, by spending more resources from the public funds, ‘cause’ delinquency, losses, a strong inefficiency flow throughout the economy’, Mihai Tănăsescu said.

‘Economy started to recover, while uncertainty persists’, the Ziarul Financiar headlined, estimating that ‘consumption remains the main problem’.

‘Government considers reducing social security contributions to 41 percent’, the Bursa headlined, quoting the Minister of Labour, Ioan Botiş.

‘Reducing the social contributions is a good measure, which had to be taken long before in order to surpass the crisis and in order to create new jobs, because the CAS still remained a tax burden for the employers’, according to Professor Liviu Voinea quoted by Ziarul Financiar. In this regard Romania ranks fifth in the European Union.

Some consultants, however, were skeptical that a three-point reduction in the contributions would stimulate the creation of new jobs. The reduction would only mean a return to what it was before, Voinea revealed.

The Curierul Naţional opens with an article entitled ‘First house Scheme still enriches banks’ which ‘also win customers and secured loans.’ ‘While some say that the First Home Scheme is the life preserver of the local market, others say by recognizing its contribution that the generated amount is small.’

‘Football and money’ the Bursa headlined. ‘Cable networks ruined Premier League clubs.’ ‘The auction for the TV rights of matches in the Premier League ended with a big surprise for the Professional Football League and for first division clubs’, the newspaper noted.

‘The plan of the Professional Football League president, Dumitru Dragomir, to raise 110 million euros from the actions for televising the football national championship seasons from seasons 2011 and 2013, failed from the start. At the auction held yesterday there only three of the nine packages were sold’, the Curierul Naţional explained. ‘The price was too high considering the quality of the Romanian soccer, ‘and the auction organizers were not aware the crisis’, the newspaper quoted the opinions of some auctioneers.

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