Ramona Jurubiță, Vice-president of the Foreign Investors Council (FIC)
and Laurian Lungu, macroeconomic analysis coordinator will be the
guests of the program’s edition of the Journalist Sorin Pâslaru during
the Ziarul Financiar.live program on Monday, 26 September at 12:00. The
main topics discussed will be Va Urma project (www.vaurma.ro) and about
solutions that foreign investors have to reduce the gap between Romania
and the West.
Romanians have started paying more attention to the expenses that can
affect the family budget, as for 25.5% of them, 40-60% of their income
is currently allocated for home-related expenses, according to a survey
conducted by CEC Bank in partnership with the bank comparator
FinZoom.ro. The survey also indicates that 66.43% of Romanians usually
monitor their budget on a monthly basis, up by about 3% compared to the
first quarter of 2022. About 75% of the elderly (over 55) say they
monitor their budget on a regular basis, while only 55% of people under
25 say they have this habit.
The European Central Bank is studying ways of cutting a subsidy to
banks that stands to cost it tens of billions of euros in interest,
four sources who wished to remain anonymous told Reuters, a decision
that will most likely prompt pushback from lenders. To fight runaway
inflation, the ECB has raised the rate it pays on the EUR 4,600 billion
banks’ reserves that exceed requirements, from -0.5% to 0.75% in less
than two months.
Employers spent, on average, RON 5,802/employee per month in 2021, up
by 7.3% year-on-year, according to the National Institute of Statistics
(INS). The average monthly cost grew in most economic activities
compared to the previous year. The biggest increases were recorded in
hotels and restaurants (+15.5%), entertainment, cultural and
recreational activities (+12.9%), manufacturing industry (+11%),
electrical and thermal power, gas, hot water and air conditioning
production and supply (+10.6%), other service activities (+10.2%),
agriculture, forestry and fishing (+10.1%).
The yields at which Romania borrows local currency grew across all
maturities following US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise the key
rate. The Ministry of Finance had a weak government securities auction,
with low demand from investors. The US Federal Reserve raised its key
rate by 75 basis points, to 3.25%. The market had expected this
increase, but Fed suggested that further, higher interest rate hikes
would follow at the end of 2022 and in 2023, and adopted a tighter
rhetoric on inflation, even at the cost of an economic slowdown or even
a recession.
UniCredit Consumer Financing, part of UniCredit financial group, allows
clients to access consumer loans from their mobile phones directly, by
accessing UniCredit Bank’s Mobile Banking app. Financing can be up to
RON 100,000 and is available with a standard, fixed interest rate of
12.99% per year. This can be reduced up to 8.99% per year, depending on
clients’ options. Clients can benefit from a 2% cut in interest rate
(compared to the standard interest rate of 12.99%/year) if they choose
to cash their monthly incomes into current accounts opened with
UniCredit Bank throughout the duration of the loan contract and from an
additional reduction of 2% (compared to the standard interest rate of
12.99%/year) if clients opt for life insurance attached to the loan.
Private lending grew by 15.9% in August 2022 compared to the same
period in 2021, to a total balance of RON 359 billion, after
RON-denominated loans increased by 16.8% and foreign currency ones,
expressed in RON, were up 13.8%, according to data published by the NBR
on Friday. The growth rate had been 16.8% in July, and 17.5% in June,
according to data aggregated by ZF. In real terms, the balance of loans
rose by 0.5% year-on-year in August 2022, following a 1.3% increase in
the RON-denominated component and a 15.6% advance of the foreign
currency one, if the indicator is expressed in euros.
Nicolas Maurice Georges Naftalski has received the Financial
Supervisory Authority (ASF)’s approval to become a member of Groupama
Asigurări’s Board of Directors, according to the information provided
by ASF. He began his career with Groupama in 2007 as the group’s
internal auditor in France. After filling this position for two and a
half years, Nicolas Naftalski held various offices within Groupama in
Turkey, having become a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in 2013-2014. He
is currently the general manager of Groupama Loire Bretagne. He has an
MBA from HEC Paris and an MBA from New York University. Groupama ended
Q1/2022 with RON 754.1 million gross underwritten premiums, an almost
triple volume compared to Q1/2021.
Raiffeisen Bank has announced that it will finance ten non-formal
education projects with a total non-reimbursable amount of RON 500,000,
within the Raiffeisen Communities grants competition for public schools
in Romania and NGOs. The selected projects include a biodiversity and
sustainability education program, a vocational training project for
institutionalized young people in Gorj County and a diversity and
inclusion educational project for high school students, according to
data transmitted by the institution’s representatives on Friday.
INVL Renewable Energy Fund I, administered by INVL Asset Management and
which invests in renewable energy projects, continues to actively
invest in Romania. It has signed two contracts for the acquisition of
six solar farm projects with a total capacity of 102.7 megawatts (MW),
according to a press release. The cited source also indicates that
these transactions take INVL Renewable Energy Fund I’s portfolio of
projects in Romania to 268.7 MW. All solar farm projects in the Fund’s
portfolio have already been approved for connection to the grid. The
Fund’s total investment potential in Romania, including solar projects
under development as of June this year, will exceed EUR 200 million.
All solar farms are expected to start producing electricity in 2024 and
2025.
The company M.I.S-Grup from Bistriţa-Năsăud, controlled by entrepreneur
Emil Iugan, in association with Electrogrup Cluj, Energosteel ART
Braşov and Yenigun Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi from Turkey,
have started construction works on the Polivalentă Hall with over
11,000 seats in Braşov, a RON 356.7 million (EUR 72 million)
investment. The works execution period is 36 months and the investment
is supported by the National Investments Company (CNI) and by Brasov
City Hall (3.5% of the costs).
Premier Restaurants Romania, the operator of McDonald’s restaurants
chain in Romania, is to reopen its restaurant in Tomis Mall shopping
center in Constanta, following over RON 4 million modernization and
digitalization investments, according to a press release. Customers
will have new facilities and benefits thanks to the digital system,
which allows orders to be placed via digital kiosks.
The draft law initiated by two MPs from the Social Democratic Party
(PSD) for drug testing through announced verifications in schools,
which has sparked controversy in the public space, has been amended and
is soon to be submitted to Parliament. According to the draft law,
police officers will be allowed to carry out unannounced verifications
in schools, high schools and universities, upon the request of the
heads of educational units or the county school inspectorates and will
be able to test pupils randomly using saliva tests.
On Friday, 23 September, the Government adopted an Emergency Ordinance
(OUG) through which Romania meets two more milestones stipulated in the
National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), namely the completion of
a full dual education route from pre-university to university level and
the regulation of early education services. The second milestone
regulates complementary services such as playgrounds in places where
there are not enough seats in nurseries or kindergartens, thus ensuring
a unified, inclusive and good quality early education system and
increasing access to early education services for children under six.
Following the public debate on the draft Emergency Ordinance amending
and completing National Education Law 1/2011, which ensures the legal
framework for the payment/settlement of transport for pupils going to
school in a locality other than their place of residence, which
representatives of the National Council of Students and other students
associations, representatives of the National Union of County Councils
in Romania, of the Romanian Communes’ Association, of the Ombudsman and
of civil society participated in, seven proposals for improving the
draft normative act were agreed upon. As a result, the amount granted
for the transport of pupils attending school in a locality other than
their place of residence will grow four times.
Russia’s decision to support the organization of so-called referendums
to annex territories occupied by its army forces in Ukraine is
completely unacceptable, Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said
during the UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine. The foreign minister
reaffirmed Romania’s long-standing commitment to promoting respect for
international law as a fundamental pillar of its foreign policy and
said that it is inadmissible that the actions of a permanent member
state of the Security Council, namely Russia, endanger the rule-based
international order.
Single people or families who cannot afford to pay their heating bills
during the cold season can apply for state aid on 15 October. The
provision of home heating aid is regulated by Law 226/2021 regarding
vulnerable consumers. The state aid is granted in the form of a sum
that people with low incomes can use to cover part of their heating
costs in winter.
Only 1% of Romanians aged 25-64 attended personal or professional
development courses after leaving school, twice as few as Bulgarians
and nine times below the European average, according to Eurostat data
included in an analysis made by a company specializing in the provision
of business software solutions. The cited source indicates that Romania
ranks last in the European Union in terms of percentage of people who
continue learning after completing their studies. At the other end of
the classification, the European countries where there is major
interest in continuing education are Sweden (28.6%), Switzerland
(27.6%) and Finland (27.3%).