April 2010

Half Of Population To Use Bank Products, Only 1% Internet Banking
More than half of all Romanians over 15 use banking services, as a survey of consumer research company GfK showed. Accordingly, 56 percent of Romanians would use bank products. This way, Romania is second to last place regionally. The country looks better on the use of credit: 26 percent of Romanians access this kind of financing - about the same as much as in Hungary. Consumer loans were the most popular credits, with 18 percent (March 2010), but dropping 4 percent as of January 2010. Only 4 percent have claimed a real estate loan. However, Romanians save far less than other Europeans. Only 11 percent of Romanians said to have used savings plans offered by the banks. Austria is leading with 74 percent. Internet banking is hardly an issue in Romania - only about 1 percent of the respondents use such services.

Government Plans To Sell Shares For 1 Billion Euro
The Romanian government plans to sell minority interests in various energy companies. "Money from the sale of these shares will only be used for infrastructure investment," said the Romanian Minister Adriean Videanu. In this case, shares in OMV subsidiary Petrom, Transelectrica, Transgaz and Romgaz would be offered for sale. Even more companies are involved in this program, Videanu said. The expected total is in excess of one billion Euro. Romania still holds almost 21 percent of Petrom, OMV holds 51 percent of the shares. According to the minister, the government plans to remain involved in Petrom, with more than 8 percent.

Röchling To Produce Car Parts For Ford And Dacia In Craiova
The U.S. car manufacturer Ford attracts German suppliers. The Röchling plastics manufacturer based in Mannheim, Germany, plans to build a new production plant in the southern Romanian city of Craiova, near the Ford Romania site. As the company announced, the investment will rise to 5 million Euro. The company will not only supply Ford, also the Renault subsidiary Dacia shall be customers of the German supplier. The Germans seek an area of 5,000 square meters, said spokesmen Ina Breitsprecher. The investment would create about 30 jobs. Noise reduction components for engines and water tanks are to be produced. Gebr Röchling KG employs approx. 5400 employees in 20 countries in the fields of high-performance plastics and automotive plastics.

March 2010

Current Account Deficit Decreases By 73,2 Per Cent
Romania's current account deficit fell last January. The current account deficit in the first month of this year was at 123 million Euro, an decrease by 73.2 per cent compared to the previous year. According to the Romanian Central Bank BNR, this was mainly due to the decline in trade deficit. The trade deficit has declined in January to the previous year by 55.8 per cent to 217 million Euro. The current account deficit was fully covered by foreign direct investment, which amounted to 302 million Euro. In FY 2009, the current account deficit of Romania decreased by 68.7 per cent to 5.05 billion Euro.

Public Debt Decreases By 2,8 Per Cent In January
The total public debt of Romania, compared to the end of 2009, declined by 2.8 per cent to the equivalent of 34.9 billion Euro, as of January 31st 2010, as the Romanian Finance Ministry announced. This represents 26.71 per cent of the estimated GDP for this year, which is expected to rise to 538.9 billion Lei (132 billion Euro). 41.88 per cent of the debt was in local currency, 45.27 percent in Euro and the rest in other foreign currencies. 38.93 per cent of the debt were state loans, 19.21 per cent treasury bonds and 18.03 per cent state bonds. 6.64 percent were caused by eurobonds.

Mugur Isarescu: Riscs For Greek's Problems To Arise is "limited"
Although a sixth of all authorized banks in Romania come from Greece, the Romanian Central Bank Governor Mugur Isarescu sees only 'limited' risks for Romania, to be confronted with Greece's difficulties. The agreement signed in August 2009 in Vienna, with foreign banks from Romania, would be put to the test for the third time (after the global financial crisis and the political crisis in Romania), Isarescu told the Financial Times. In Vienna, foreign banks signed for maintaining their commitment in Romania as well as for improving their solvency rate to 10 per cent. The agreement runs until the end of April 2011, when the stand-by agreement with the IMF also ends.

February 2010

Fitch To Upgrade Rating Of Romania Earlier Than Expected
Even in a year of crisis did the Romanian Stock Market manage a good performance. The gains started however only in the second half of the year. The general index BET-C rose by 37.31 per cent up to 2714.77 points. The best performance had the finance index BET-FI with a year-to-year gain of 90.33 per cent. The value of listed companies rose in 2009 by 75.2 per cent upt to 80.07 billion lei.

Economy Still Decreasing In 4th Quarter 2009
The credit debt of the private and commercial customers in late November of this year amounted to more than 8 billion lei, and thus were almost four times higher than the previous year. This was announced by the Romanian Central Bank BNR. The proportion of bad loans in the total volume of loans rose from 1.1 per cent (at the end of 2008) to currently 3.96 per cent. The value of defaulting loans in local currency amounted in November to 4.2 billion lei, as in foreign currency converted loans amounted to 3.79 billion lei.

More Than 6000 Companies Suspended Activities In January
December brought supermarkets and hypermarkets sales worth more than 600 million Euro, 30-35% more than the average of a regular month. Last year, supermarket and hypermarket networks (discounters included) posted cumulated sales of 6 billion euros, according to Finance Ministry data, that is a 450-500 million-euro average. Generally, the number of clients in hypermarkets goes up by approximately 35 per cent in December compared with a regular month, according to market data. This year, however, retailers are no longer talking about growth in sales or client traffic, so that the December 2008 peak may not be reached in 2009. Supermarket and hypermarket chains on the Romanian market total almost 500 stores at present, with almost one million square metres in sales area.

January 2010

Foreign Direct Investment 2009, at 54% compared to last year
Foreign direct investment totaled last year, according to a study by the UN Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD, 4.24 billion Euro, slightly more than half as much as a year earlier. According to the Romanian Central Bank foreign direct investments were at the end of November 2009 at 3.8 billion Euro. Should the figures from UNCTAD be totally correct, then the figures for December are likely to be pleasing: Following direct investments of 110 million Euro in November, in December 2009 a total of 440 million Euro have been invested. Compared to the same period, the FDI in the first 11 months of last year fell by 56 per cent. UNCTAD expects in 2010 a rise in foreign direct investment.

Annual inflation 2009: 4.7 per cent
With an annual inflation of 4.7 per cent the Romanian Central Bank BNR had missed its inflation target for the third consecutive year. Romania registered last year an inflation rate three times higher than the EU average of 1.4 per cent. Compared with the inflation of the Euro-zone (0.9 per cent), the difference is even 5 to 1. Only Hungary posted a higher inflation rate in the EU than Romania last year: 5.4 per cent. Poland follows on third place with 3.8 per cent. For the current fiscal year, the Romanian National Bank sees an inflation rate at 3.5 per cent (+ / - 1 per cent).

Moody's: 2.3 per cent economic growth for 2010
The rating agency Moody's predicts a bright future for Romania. The recession is nearing its end, growth is expected to start as early as in the second quarter of this year, according to a report of the agency. Exports have tightened and access to liquidity in the market has improved in recent months. This could suggest the country would enter into growth as early as coming April. For the schließen. Für das laufende Jahr sehen current year, Moody's experts are predicting an economic growth of 2.3 per cent. So far, Moody's had predicted an increase of 1.2 per cent. In the current draft of the budget, the government had assumed an growth of 1.3 per cent and its start only in the second half of the year. The classification of Romania from Moody's is Baa3 and the recommendation is "stable".

Visa recorded double-digit growth in Romania
The card provider Visa International has registered in Romania lush growth in the past fiscal year, that ended on 30th of in June 2009. The number of debit and credit cards in circulation rose by 5.4 per cent to 6.2 million. The number of transactions through Visa debit cards rose by 23.2 per cent, while sales value grew by 32 per cent. Also the number of acceptance posted a double-digit growth: +23 per cent. Thus, Romania is, according to Visa Europe at the forefront in Europe, with an above the average growth rate.