Romania: Press review - February 9
Feb 9, 2010

Romania: Press review - February 9.
Bucharest, Feb 9 /Agerpres/ - Romania's national dailies of Tuesday give main coverage to the latest developments in unemployment and unemployment trends; the prospects for Romania's arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF); population's savings with banks growing in the year of crisis; the possibility of an additional tax being levied on land owners for unkempt land; the complex traffic issues generated by the massive snowfalls of the past days.


Ziarul financiar reports that private companies in Romania closed 2009 at just 1.6 million employment contracts, down from 2.3 million in 2008. In January 2010, unemployment advanced 0.3 percent, to 8.1 percent. The Government's reaction, the paper says, was very weak: we will consider benefits for the hire of jobless, but we are focusing on job creation and preservation as well.

Statistics carried by the newspaper indicate that as of end-2009, there were 5.7 million active employment contracts recorded with the Labour Inspectorate, down from 6.3 million at end-2008.

Cureirul national remarks that such high an unemployment figure was only reached in March 2003, when there were officially 779,154 unemployed people.

Romania libera notes that unemployment has exceeded 8 percent, wondering where this will end.

Ziarul financiar remarks that the crisis has wept away 600,000 jobs and the Government is unable to stop the job hemorrhage.

Gandul notes that unemployment has reached the historic record of the past seven years, providing information about what companies are still hiring, while Curentul presents the benefits to be extended by the Government to companies hiring unemployed people.


Gandul remarks that Romania might request that its stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) be changed into a precautionary arrangement, much as Hungary did by not taking all the money under an IMF stand-by arrangement. This change would entail only Romania observing the requirements in the arrangement.

Curentul quotes Romania's Finance Minister Sebastian Vladescu as saying it is too early to be able to say whether the arrangement will change after the next revision of it, but the Government hopes Romania may switch to a precautionary arrangement, because that would mean global economy is recovering and the Romanian economy has recovered.



The papers carry data with the National Energy Regulatory Authority of Romania indicating that the Romanian domestic market will have consumed this winter by nearly 60 percent more Russian gas- both imported during the winter and extracted from the underground storage facilities, than it did in December 2008 - February 2009.

Natural gas consumption is expected to increase by 15 percent locally in the three winter months of 2010, compared with the last year. The weight of imported gas in total consumption reached 45 percent so far this month, compared with 22.5 percent in February 2009.


Financiarul reports that the population's savings with banks, both RON- and forex-denominated, increased throughout 2009 to RON 72.9 billion (nearly 17 billion euros), up RON 26.1 billion from 2008. On the other hand, corporate bank savings as of December 31, 2009 were standing at only RON 500 million (nearly 117 million euros), slightly up from the similar period of the year before.


Adevarul reports that landowners who keep their land unkempt will pay an extra tax. The agriculture minister has unveiled the idea for the new tax, saying that the Finance Ministry also agrees. Agriculture Minister Mihail Dumitru is quoted as saying the discussion of the new tax started with Finance Minister Sebastian Vladescu and Vladescu agreed, according to the transcripts of a meeting of Dumitru and trade union and employers' associations.


Jurnalul National reports that the CFR Calatori national passenger rail carrier has informed that 80 trains will be cancelled Tuesday and Wednesday, after some trains on Monday had to walk a different route because of abundant snow and strong snowstorms in the past days.

Adevarul reports that several women who were about to give birth were dug out of snow by tractors, helicopter or all-terrain vehicles. Gheorghe Berechet is said to have become a local hero of the southern county of Olt as he saved the life of a young woman who was about to give birth. The man tied the ambulance to his tractor to carry the woman to the safety of a local hospital in Caracal. AGERPRES
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