Romania's Government on Friday approved the emergency ordinance which changes the way the pensions of former military personnel are calculated, people close to the matter told MEDIAFAX. read more...

Romania’s leu strengthened against the euro in mid trade Friday, fueled by higher volumes, and the central bank’s reference gained over 0.2% on the day at 4.271 units, from 4.2675 units Thursday. read more...

Summing up how things stand with European funds attracted until December 2010, the result is disastrous: only 47 million euros paid from EU funds of the 4.5 billion euros available. At this rate, there is a danger of losing the money allocated to this sector to other countries. read more...

The Otopeni Airport upgrade will be financed via a 100 million-euro "private" loan taken out by the national company that manages it, although theoretically the state borrowed 20 billion euros from the IMF and the European Commission precisely for investment purposes. read more...

Clients' lack of confidence in the economy, on the one hand, and the low incomes and real estate uncertainties, on the other, are the main hurdles in the way of loan sales picking up, maintains Radu Topliceanu, a retail executive with Raiffeisen Bank. read more...

Romania’s consolidated budget posted in 2010 a deficit of 33.3 billion lei (EUR1=RON4.2675), or 6.5% of the estimated gross domestic product, lower than the ceiling agreed with the International Monetary Fund, the Finance Ministry said Thursday. read more...

Romania’s general consolidated budgetary deficit amounted to, at the end of last year, to 33.3 billion lei representing 6.5% of GDP below the limit agreed with the IMF, a press release of the Finance ministry reads. The deficit target in the supplementary letter to the stand by agreement with the IMF was of 34.6 billion lei. read more...

The Romanian opposition Social Democratic Party is calling on the Government to urgently reduce the value added tax back to 19%, social democrat senator Olguta Vasilescu told a news conference Thursday. read more...

Romania's Government and the International Monetary Fund are discussing the terms of a two-year follow agreement to a EUR13 billion loan program that expires in May, people familiar with the talks said. read more...

Romania’s Government will draft an emergency decree on the recalculation of military pensions by February 1, when the Parliament resumes works, Government spokeswoman Ioana Muntean told Mediafax Wednesday evening. read more...

Bankers kept private lending "frozen" last year and, in the absence of funding, the Romanian economy ended up being the only country in negative territory apart from Greece, more than two years after the 2008 financial crisis. read more...

Commercial banks last year paid 276.84 million RON (65.9 million euros) as banking corporate tax, with the amount being around four times lower than that paid in 2009, according to data sent to ZF by the Finance Ministry. read more...

Romanian pensioners and war veterans will be issued travel smart cards, for use in county and inter-county road transport, and transport firms will be required to outfit their vehicles with card readers, as per a Government Decision issued Wednesday. read more...

Fuel resellers cannot blame pump price hikes on the local taxation, Wednesday said Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc, who called for additional inspections by the tax and competition authorities targeting the oil companies. read more...

Romanian tax authority ANAF will refund in January value added tax to companies worth 1.36 billion lei (EUR1=RON4.2621), the highest sum returned so far in a single month, the authority said Wednesday. read more...

Bankers have lowered loan application processing fees for individual customers to less than 400 euros as part of the new stipulations, which require them to levy a fixed fee, instead of the one calculated as a percentage of the lent amount, as was the case in the past. read more...

Romania’s planned follow-up agreement with the International Monetary Fund represents a keystone for the country’s structural reforms and its main objective will be ensuring the continuity of the process, central bank governor Mugur Isarescu said Monday. read more...

IMF, World Bank and European Commission representatives start on Tuesday, in Bucharest, their seventh evaluation mission of the stand-by agreement and negotiations for a new possible agreement. read more...

Next year will see the nearly 20 billion-euro record loan taken out by Romania from foreign financers mature, and the National Bank and the Finance Ministry are set to start repaying loan instalments, with one of the issues discussed being whether the Government will have to sell some of its assets in order to repay the money. read more...

Romania’s planned follow-up deal with the International Monetary Fund might not include a new agreement with the parent banks of the country’s top largest lenders, as the mother banks are maintaining their exposure at sufficiently high levels, people familiar with the negotiations said Monday. read more...