Thursday, May 15th

President Traian Basescu says that Romania needs a policy to strengthen agricultural areas

The Romanian President Traian Basescu says that it is necessary to strengthen the policy for consolidating the agricultural areas, given that half of this land consists of small farms, but only after the preparation of the cadastre and land registry. In the opening of the Farmers’ National Conference on " The Romanian agriculture between subsistence and performance", the President has added that irrigation over large areas is costly and, therefore, he has proposed a policy to collect water from rain and tornadoes, in addition to finishing Siret-Bărăgan and Bucureşti-Olteniţa channels.

Metro Union Trade protest

Protest demonstration has been announced today by the metro trade union. The protesters will march from the Ministry of Transport to the Government, complaining that the administration does not apply the provisions in the Collective Labor Agreement, and neither the wage increase memorandum signed last year by Prime Minister Victor Ponta. Unionists also claim unilateral change of the organizational chart without consulting workers' representatives, the poor state of cleanliness of the subway after layoffs in April, but also the intention to pass Metrorex under the subordination of the City Hall. This is the second protest this month by the metro unionists, but so far the company's management has dismissed as unfounded the union demands.

Money for SMEs

The SMEs have available, in the next seven years, almost 2.5 billion euros from the EU budget in order to improve their competitiveness via the European funding program COSME. The Delegated Minister for SMEs, Florin Jianu, has introduced the program as well as other financing options which will help small entrepreneurs.

Romania has had an economic growth of 3.8 percent in the first quarter of the year

Romania has had an economic growth of 3.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same period last year, according to data released today by the National Institute of Statistics. However, the GDP in the first quarter of this year was, in real terms, more than 0.1 percent compared to the fourth quarter of last year. Thus, if no negative economic events occur, it is possible that by the end of the year the economic growth might exceed 3.5 percent, over the initial estimates of 2.2 percent. The Prime Minister Victor Ponta has recently announced that preliminary figures showed for the first quarter of this year an increase by 3.2 percent. IMF and the Government envisage on economic growth of 2.2 percent this year, according to the last Letter of Intention.

Natalia Polikarpov

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