National Press Review, 16 August

Romania opened the door to Chinese investors. "Boc in China: Romania is a gateway to Europe", the Jurnalul Naţional headlined.

The offer for Beijing: Bucharest’s bypass, highways, the improvement of the rivers Argeş and Dâmboviţa for navigation, the construction of reactors 3 and 4 at Cernavodă.

This is the first step, the journalists wrote, to normalize bilateral relations.

The Prime Minister "went to lay down the first brick."

How and when will the received positive signals from the Chinese side materialize, remains uncertain - this was the conclusion of the article, supported by the fact that the Romanian delegation's visit, which included businessmen also, was not prepared for the contractual details on any field.

"Chinese people, enticed by Boc with state aid," the Adevărul headlined.

Attending a business forum in Beijing, Prime Minister Emil Boc assured the Chinese businessmen that they will receive state aid if they invest heavily in Romania.

The Chinese companies gave assurances that they will request discount prices in order to perform the works and in return, they asked for... non-discriminatory treatment against other companies.

The conclusion of the Adevărul: "although Romania is a gateway to the European Union for them, the Chinese are not willing to come unconditionally."

Until massive Asian investments, our labor market is stuck. Also in the Adevărul we read about a market analysis of the field, which was based on figures of the budget fiscal strategy.

Thus, by the end of 2011, the number of employees in the economy will grow by about 25,000, which is less than 0.5%.

This is also due to the fact that businessmen postponed hiring in order to enhance their profits and they’d rather work with the same team that helped the company to pass the brunt of the crisis.

Abiding by the principle of one hot shot, following another cold one, the Ziarul Financiar estimated and concluded: "the crops of wheat, corn, rape seed and sunflower are worth over four billion euros."

The calculations were based on international stock prices, but also on higher volume harvests compared to last year’s.

The Evenimentul Zilei started from the same topic, meaning the very good agricultural year and stated: "Recession is not returning, but growth is weak."

Agriculture had an important contribution to economic growth in the second quarter, the experts quoted by the Evenimentul explained, however, they continued, there is an ongoing need for public investment in order to race the economy engines again.

And .... speaking of public investment ... and beyond: Telegondola, Esplanda Project, Radio House, Rebuilding the City Hall. The România Liberă wrote that they are all part of the Capital’s infrastructure projects, some worth hundreds of millions of euros.

"But the announced investments turned into delays, postponements or new empty promises."

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