Financial Press Review, November 12

The daily Ziarul Financiar elaborates on their yesterday debate for economic relaunch co-organised together with the Foreign Investors Council.

The chief of state, who was invited at this manifestation, reproached the business environment that unpaid taxes and the black labour had become a national sport, and that the business environment held a part of the responsibility.

The daily Bursa runs a headline on the same subject: ‘Harsh attacks against businessmen coming from Traian Băsescu.’ Mariana Gheorghe, president of the biggest Romanian company, Petrom, asserted during the debate that the lack of leadership and coordination from policymakers makes it more difficult to apply the economy relaunch measures.

Out of 80 economy relaunch suggestions, put forward by the Foreign Investors’ Council in October, only 5 have been put into practice, writes the Bursa. Under the headline ‘What does the Romanian economy lack?’ the Curierul Naţional writes that ‘the lack of administrative capacity was highlighted by most of the economists present at a National Bank of Romania seminar,’ but also ‘one of the weak points constantly underlined by international institutions during the past years.’

Under the headline ‘The Ministry of Finance loses experts on fiscal legislation,’ the Ziarul Financiar writes about leading experts leaving the ministry, unhappy with the salary cut.

The Curierul National warns about a bad usage of terms like ‘taxă’ (tax), in the text of Ordinance 50, poorly and mechanically translated from an European directive, ‘which have a different meaning in Romanian than the English term, in the sense that in Romania taxes cannot be the object of negotiation in a credit contract,’ as the Governmental Ordinance suggests.

As a consequence, Viorel Ştefan said: ‘it has been decided, at a technical staff level, that all the terms of the ordinance text should be redefined’ and a more rigorous text should be formulated.

The Ziarul Financiar quotes the dean of the Economic Faculty of ASE on the first page, who underlines ‘the precariousness of economic knowledge’ of Romania’s political elite.

‘Populism fills the knowledge gaps, which is a major risk for leading the economy out of the crisis and recovering the offsets,’ says Marin Dinu, also a member of the NBR Administration Council. ‘Furthermore, he accuses the political class of avoiding public debates on various economic projects,’ writes the Ziarul Financiar.

The same daily mentions, from yesterday debates, the president’s opinion that those who talk economy on Romanian television networks are replaced by inexperienced people in politics and economy when it comes to making economic decisions, but also Băsescu’s advice for businessmen to involve more in economic media debates.

Translated by Ciocănel Tudor-Alexandru and Raluca Mizdrea
MA Students, MTTLC, Bucharest University