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Economic
Retail turnover drops by 31 pct
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Retail turnover drops by 31 pct Retail turnover volume, other than vehicle and motorcycle sales, dropped as gross series by 31.1 percent in Jan. 2010 compared to Dec. 2009, according to a release of the National Statistics Institute (INS). Turnover volume of sales of food products, beverage and tobacco, slumped by 32.4 percent and the turnover volume of non-food product sales slumped by 32 percent in Jan. 2010 on Dec. 2009.Retail of vehicle fuel in specialized stores saw a decline of 26.2 ...
Commission gives green light to genetically-modified potato
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
In a controversial move, the European Commission last Tuesday (2 March) gave the green light for the first genetically-modified potato to be cultivated in the European Union. The EU executive authorised the cultivation in the EU of Amflora, a genetically-modified potato developed by German chemical company BASF, The move marked the bloc's first GM cultivation approval in 12 years.BASF plans to begin cultivating Amflora this year on 250 hectares in the Czech Republic, Sweden and Germany. ...
Subsidies up to 410 euroha for land owners in hill and mountain areas
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Land owners in hill and mountain areas will benefit from cumulated subsidies of 410 eurohayear in 2010 from European funds, the chairman of Suceava County Council Gheorghe Flutur said on Thursday. He added that for animal husbandry the support will be of 500 leicattle capita and 430 lei for sheep and goats.At the same time he showed that the subsidy per hectare was increased by 50 euro from 116 eurohayear to 166 eurohayear of which 81 euro represent European funds and the rest are additional ...
Romania to carry out new agricultural census starting December 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Romania will carry out a new general agricultural census (RGA), from December 2010 to January 2011, in order to update the data regarding the existing land areas, the number of animals, the irrigation systems as well as the number of farmers and farm equipment.'Taking into consideration the member state quality and the acquis communautaire in the field of agricultural statistics, Romania must carry out the General Agricultural Census with the year 2010 as year of reference and, at ...
Bucharest Tourism, business of 23 mln euros
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Bucharest Tourism (BUTU), company holding the five-star hotel Radisson Blu, on Calea Victoriei, in Bucharest and Centreville Apart Hotel complex, posted last year a turnover of 99 million lei (23.3 million euros), a jump of 73 percent from 2008, when Radisson Hotel was opened in just six months.The company has cut losses compared to a year earlier, from 66 million lei (18 million euros) to 35 million lei (8.2 million euros), according to the preliminary financial situations ...
KPMG Survey: Poor infrastructure funding could deepen recession
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Public sector executives around the world agree with private infrastructure providers and business leaders that government effectiveness and financing are top challenges to delivering infrastructure projects, according to a survey commissioned by KPMG, a global network of independent firms, providing tax audit and advisory services.According to the survey, 56% of the respondents said lack of funds remained the largest obstacle in infrastructure development.“While stimulus spending was a ...
Bucharest North and South ring road - more than 2 bln euros
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Bucharest North and South ring road works, at motorway level, are to cost more than two billion euros, three times as much as the initial estimations in the feasibility studies conducted over 2002-2003 due to more than 60-fold rise in the price of land going to be expropriated.Constructors working at Capital's South ring road extension asked the Ministry of Transport several supplements to the contracts concluded for the extension of the ring road, according to information sent by ...
Ski track in Cozla Mountains, first in Romania that got European approval certificate
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Minister of Regional Development and Tourism, Elena Udrea, recently inaugurated the ski track in the Cozla Mountains, with this being the first Romanian ski track that owns the European approval certificate. Moreover, Udrea officially opened the first edition of the ‘Snow Stone' Festival. 'You have so many attractions here that you can bring the entire Europe. I'm glad to know that because of such projects, the city of Piatra Neamt and the Neamt County will be visited by tourists ...
Romania, last in Europe in terms of 2009 non-residents spending nights at its hotels
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Non-residents having spent nights in Romania's hotels and other similar establishments in 2009 had the lowest share in any European Union member state, according to statistics released on Monday by the Eurostat European statistics office.The number of nights spent in hotels in 2009 fell in all European Union member states, except for Sweden (0.1 percent).In Romania, hotel nights stood at 16.6 million, down 16.4 percent, 2.5 million of which were recorded by non-residents, down 21.9 percent, ...
Datourway project on tourism development in Danube's riparian region is launched
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism (MDRT) has launched in Braila (east) the Datourway Project - Transnational Strategy for Territorial Sustainable Development of the Danube's riparian region, through supporting tourism development along the Danube Valley.According to a MDRT release, the project is funded through the South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme and numbers 16 partners from seven countries, namely Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia ...
Health minister targets hospital decentralization by July 1
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Health Minister Attila Cseke told a press conference the decentralization through the transfer of the public medical units to the local administration is now one of the solutions aimed at improving the health system and must be analyzed by this summer. He added this objective must be met by July 1, 2010 and even sooner, as it is assumed under the ruling program and in the reports of the World Bank. The minister made a list with the units to be transferred and out of the 439 public ...
Director of Ogilvy CEE: 2010 is the year of mobile web
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Wim Vermeulen, Director of Innovation at Ogilvy Group, Central and Eastern Europe, said 2010 is shaping up to be a huge year for mobile web, when it may reach its axis point upon the entry of Google and Apple in the market. “If in the past seven years, people would say this was the year of the mobile web, in 2010 we’re actually seeing the mobile internet taking hold. And that due to the entry of Google and Apple in the market”, said Vermeulen, at the fourth edition of Digital Marketing ...
Increasingly more numerous Romanians use phones, even at time of crisis
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Orange Romania company's number of clients went up 6.2 percent in December 2009 compared to the previous year, the mobile network operator informs in a release sent to Agerpres, on Thursday. On December 31, 2009, the Orange Romania company registered as many as 10,995,000 clients, which is 6.2 percent more than in December 2008. The growth rate of the users' number in 2009, compared to 2008, is similar to the one registered at the end of 2008, compared to 2007, and in the last quarter of ...
Romanian Telecom Operators To Supply 3G Services On GSM Frequencies
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Romanian branches of telecom operators Orange, Vodafone and Cosmote will be able to supply 3G and high speed mobile internet services through the radio frequencies 900 MHz and 1,800 MHz, which are currently used for GSM communications. "The Consultative Council of Romanian communications regulator ANCOM adopted a decision in this respect and, after the decision is published in the Official Journal, the three operators will be able to supply 3G services through the GSM networks. The ...
Romanian Court decides that seeds for cultivation may not be contaminated with genetically modified organisms
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Romanian Minister of Agriculture's Decree no. 18523.03.2009 and 18623.03.2009 ,illegally regulated the safety for all seeds for cultivation and seeding material, by allowing theircontamination with genetically modified organisms (GMO). These new Decrees are modifying twoolder Decrees of the Minister for Agriculture no. 1262 and 12642005 . This is the conclusion of Appeals Court Cluj, which announced Tuesday, 23rd of February 2010, the decision to annul the paragraph ...
Almost 80,000 hectares of woods are deforested following return of property
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
In the time to come Romania has to afforest about 700,000 hectares of land, which can no longer be used in agriculture, of the more than three million hectares of calamity-stricken land, which accounts for one third of Romania's arable land, experts say.'Currently we have about three million hectares of calamity-stricken land, one third of the arable land, and the solution for the recovery of the surface or the protection of the environment is to plant about 700,000 hectares with ...
Romania wants measure to reinvigorate agricultural markets
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Romania is in favour of the preservation of the Common Agricultural Policy's current market intervention instruments, as well as for the adoption of measures to combat the effects of the prices volatility and to contribute to the markets' reinvigoration, informs the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.The steps could be the following, direct subsidies to compensate the farmers' income losses, fiscal cuts or exemptions, the foundation of a crisis fund, and framework ...
Minister of Agriculture: A farmer can get 400 euroshectare in 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
An farmer breeding animals in Romania can theoretically get, in 2010, the sum of 400 euroshectare, which is a historic level, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Mihail Dumitru told a conference of the Agrostar trade union confederation. He made it clear that a farmer got 81 euros, a single payment per area for every hectare of the area owned for breeding animals (pasture, hayfield), to which one can add direct national complementary payments amounting to 86 euroshectare, ...
German groups control 60 pct of Romania's retail trade
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The German Lidl & Schwarz group outran the French Carrefour retailer in the ranking of the top biggest retailers on the local market once it took over the Plus discounter network, reads the Ziarul Financiar daily.Following the integration of the 96 acquired stores, Lidl & Schwarz group, which also operates a network of 45 Kaufland hypermarkets will reach a turnover assessed by the above mentioned publication at 1.3 billion euros in Romania. On comparison, Carrefour that controls 23 ...
Romanians' at-home consumption of beer and coffee increases
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
One of the economic crisis effects upon the consumer goods of daily use is that the at-home consumption increased, in 2009, for some of the products, such as beer or coffee, which apparently the Romanians preferred to drink at home rather than going out, a GfK Romania release informs.The 6 percent increase in 2009 from 2008 in the amounts paid by the domestic consumers in Romania for purchasing goods of daily use was largely influenced by the inflation level in 2009, consider the ...