Romania

By MATTHEW SALTMARSH

PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered the expulsion of illegal Roma and itinerant immigrants and the dismantlement of their camps in a move that has been labeled by human rights groups as xenophobic and criticized by his political opponents.

One newspaper reads on Friday how Romanians in Greece are handling the crisis. Elsewhere in the news, the government plans to pass a normative act to compell owners of houses to rehabilitate the facades. Last but not least, when they talk about Romania, foreigners want to know about Transylvania. 

ZF has as a first put together the ranking of the top companies either Romanian-held or held by foreign entrepreneurs whose business is focused on the Romanian market, which reveals that, despite the top 50 Romanian businesses recording a similar turnover to that of the top five foreign companies in the economy (Petrom, Dacia, Rompetrol Metro, Orange), Romanian entrepreneurs manage to dominate sectors such as constructions, pharmaceuticals, and distribution.

Stimulating demand and cutting taxes could generate a return to growth for the Romanian economy, which does not have a long-term plan yet, said yesterday those attending ZF Expert open editorial meeting, where ZF readers are invited to talk about the leading topics of the day.

The owners of Opera Center and Europe House office buildings of Bucharest, two of the first modern “glass” buildings, have recently rented spaces to Adecco Resurse Umane and BCR Banca pentru Locuinte, firms that are undergoing relocation

Orange, leader of the Romanian telecom market, in the second quarter generated revenues worth 247m euros, down 7.49% from a year ago, amid the difficult economic conditions, in line with data included in the financial report of France Telecom, the company’s majority stakeholder

The Finance Ministry is readying to start issuing euro-denominated notes with maturities of up to five years totally worth over 7bn euros on the external market in the next three years, in line with a programme of funding through so-called “euro medium term notes” recently approved by the Government. “In the following period, we’ll start raising funding from the external market through euro medium term notes-EMTN.

The Romanian state had an 11.5 billion-euro debt to 22 European banks at the end of March, most of which from Austria, France, Greece, and Italy, accounting for 28.5% of the public debt registered in the statistics of the Finance Ministry at the same date.

The main lenders of Flanco group, ING, Unicredit Tiriac and BRD, and the retailer’s suppliers have agreed with the company’s management and Transylvania Insolvency House to wipe out debts worth above 40m euros out of a 60m-euro total receivables volume registered after the company went insolvent in December 2009.

The IMF on Wednesday had a meeting with five Romanian businesspeople, members of the Association of Romanian Businesspeople (AOAR), including Dinu Patriciu and Ion Alexandru Tiriac, who were asked to talk about the problems they’re coping with and voice their own proposals to restart the economy.