Financial Press Review, November 17

'The reforms must be done with or without the Fund' is the title of the interview with Romania's representative at the International Monetary Fund that the 22 magazine is publishing.

'Perhaps it would be better if we could govern our economy towards growth. But for now we need anchors,’ Mihai Tănăsescu says.

In the same magazine, Dan Suciu sets himself to fight 'one of the most popular myths of our times', the one that 'explains the inability to surpass the recession and the crisis because Romania has no capital of its own.'

'This prejudice seems more like the heir of the Sowers Movement that has been transferred in economy,’ the author assesses.

'Before criticising this addiction of foreign capital, we should first imagine the Romanian industry without an infusion of 20 billion euros or try to imagine another source for this money. I is impossible. Why, under these circumstances, is the country's external debt about 90 billion euros, which is a huge figure for a country that is barely breathing?

Because the country managed to accumulate half of this debt without changing anything about how public money are used,’ Dan Suciu says in 22.

Under the headline 'The country's debt has taken a leap of 5 billion euros in one year, while the banks debt has decreased by 1 billion euros’, the Ziarul Financiar writes that 'since 2009 the external dept has begun to move from the track of the private sector to the level of the government sector.'

In the third trimester, 'the total external debt has continued its rising tendency and has reached a new historic level of 89.3 billion euros at the end of September.’

The Ziarul Financiar informs us that in October the anual inflation rate in our country has risen to 7.9 percent which is the highest level in the European Union and is 3.4 time higher than its average.

Adrian Vasilescu says in the Ziarul Financiar that 'the latest polls emphasize the fact that the people of our country fear inflation more than they fear unemployment.'

'It is obvious that our inflation has no monetary causes', the adviser of the National Bank of Romania governor writes. 'The inflation especially has structural causes, hidden in the real economy.'

Among these, there are 'the unacknowledged market costs, which the companies (public ones in particular) are trying to cover up with rising prices. Plus a 5 percent increase on the value added tax.'

The Bursa quotes Liviu Voinea, the executive director of the Group of Applied Economy, whose opinion is that half of the decrease of the national economy is because of the 25 percent salary reduction and also quotes Adrian Vasilescu, who believes that 'next year will definetely be as hard as 2010.'

Under the headline 'What will the difference between companies do next year', the Curierul Naţional writes that according to the representatives of the employers, the main difference will be 'professionalism'.

The newspaper also quotes Florea Pîrvu, Vice-President of the National Council of Private Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, 'What good is it if one economic agent is fair if the state brings other taxes every day and pushes the traders to commit tax evasion or if he does not pay his debts to the enterprises on time.'

More newspapers publish articles on yesterday's conference on the thermal rehabilitation of the apartments: 'Red, yellow and blue: the thermal rehabilitation has created chaos in the urban image' (the Ziarul Financiar), 'The thermal rehabilitation program is an architectural failure' (the Curierul Naţional).

The failure is because the program has an unidirectional approach, which does not take into consideration the aesthetic-architectural aspect, both newspaper quote the president of the Union of Architects of Romania, Şerban Ţigănaş.

The Ziarul Financiar also refers to the fact that the president of the Ownership of Construction Enterprises has criticized the situation, 'only unprofessional companies have access to the thermal rehabilitation programs.'


Translated by: Iris Butnariu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University