Financial Press Review, 7 April

The high inflation, the lower interest rates perspective, the exports of the agricultural products and the Dinel Staicu case are the topics for the financial press review.

Under the headline ‘Romanian National Bank: Inflation remains high’, in the Ziarul Financiar we read: ‘RNB governor Mugur Isărescu said that he would revise the inflation forecast because the rising inflationary pressures do not fall’ and ‘the new growth in prices can not be tackled with the tools available at the central bank.’

Also the Ziarul Financiar published an article entitled ‘RCB: We need to give credits. Interest rates will decrease.’

They ‘will decrease quite significantly this year, because the banks need to sell loans in order to make profit’, the newspaper quoted Oana Petrescu, the only Romanian banker in the management of RCB, the largest local bank by assets. In addition, and more competition will drive down interest rates.

Yesterday’s statements by Minister Valeriu Tabără determined the daily Bursa to publish an article titled ‘Minister of Agriculture’s goal: Our country - net exporter of agricultural products.’

The official revealed that the objective is ‘to achieve sufficient agricultural products not just for domestic consumption, but for our presence into the foreign markets.’

The Ziarul Financiar also wrote that presently three quarters of the merchandise exports are gross commodities, basic products with low added value. The objective of the authorities is to develop exports based on processed agricultural products with high added value, the newspaper revealed.

The Dinel Staicu case was reviewed in several newspapers.

‘Dinel Staicu was among the few Mr. Cool 90s to predation BIR, then the SIF Oltenia and now generally followed’, the Ziarul Financiar headlined.

Staicu ‘was among the few ‘tough’ ones that have finally been convicted and sentenced to prison for defrauding a bank, although in the past 20 years there have been resounding failures of numerous financial institutions, ‘wrote the newspaper.

Which also described his career path: Staicu started his business as a photographer of weddings and baptisms, then became a policeman, he was awarded the Ph.D. in economics, he was elected president for five years of the financial investment company Oltenia after he has used some of the money obtained from the BIR, about 40 billion ROL for the purchase of about 100 million shares.

Curierul Naţional published an article on the same subject titled ‘How head of SIF Oltenia managed to sweep Romanian Justice.’

‘Using various legislative loopholes and taking advantage of the indifference of the authorities, the SIF Oltenia boss has vanished. Moreover, yesterday, on their official website, the police has not even inserted his name into the prosecuted category, not to mention that he belonged to the “most wanted” category’, the newspaper wrote.

On April 4 the Court of Appeal reduced his sentence by five years less one received from the Bucharest Court. The recovered amounts from the BIR creditors after bankruptcy were only 41 percent of the total bank debts, noted the Ziarul Financiar.

Under the heading ‘Government wants to grant 5000 euros facilities to purchasers of electric cars’, wrote the Bursa about an emergency ordinance prepared by the Ministry of Environment in this regard.

In a first phase, the beneficiaries will be the public institutions.

However, the Curierul Naţional also pointed out in an article quoting Minister Laszlo Borbely, ‘the biggest problem is the lack of infrastructure for such vehicles.’

Translated by: Iulia Florescu

MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University