Agricover, a major agricultural group domestically, saw its turnover rise by 52% last year to 636.6m lei (151m euros), with the advance being supported by the grain unit that accounts almost 60% in the group's turnover. read more...

Turkey's Garanti Bank wants to secure a top ten position in the next two to three years, after having brought over 1bn euros since the onset of the crisis to develop its Romanian operations. However, profit is topmost and we will not buy market share at any price, says Murat Atay, general manager of Garanti Bank Romania. read more...

Constanţa, Romania's most visited city, with around 500,000 tourists each year, is still attracting international apparel retailers in the malls under construction, with giants Inditex (Zara and another 5 stores), C&A and New Yorker having sealed contracts to rent spaces of 7,500 square metres in Maritimo mall, which is under construction. read more...

Raiffeisen Centrobank, the investment bank of the Austrian financial group of the same name, listed eight FP equity-backed structured products on Vienna, Frankfurt and Stuttgart bourses shortly after the Fund's floatation in Bucharest. Brokers say FP is thus gaining visibility and reaching investors who have not eyed the Romanian capital market, yet. read more...

The Boc Government has assumed responsibility in front of Parliament on the modifications brought to the Labour Code, a draft that could make the labour market more flexible and lead to the creation of nearly 90,000 jobs, according to estimates of the Foreign Investors Council, the association that put together the draft most of whose provisions are to be found in the document that reached Parliament. read more...

The mobile Internet services market and the smartphone sales are still in the early stages of development in Romania, so both segments will see significant growth rates over the next five years, say officials of Cosmote - no. 3 on the mobile communications market, who hope the effervescence on the two segments will help the company narrow the gap between revenues and profit that separates it from market leaders Orange and Vodafone. read more...

RCS&RDS, the telecom operator controlled by Oradea businessman Zoltan Teszari, managed to obtain two loans worth a cumulated 368 million dollars (206 million dollars and 125 million euros respectively) from a group of banks, to refinance part of its debts and to have money for investments. read more...

SIF Transilvania financial investment company has a 61 million-lei (14.5 million-euro) investment budget it wants to target mainly at stock exchange listed oil and energy companies. read more...

The industry continued to go full speed ahead at the beginning of the year, after last year it had one of the biggest contributions to the slowing down of economic decline. read more...