Bucharest city hall general counsellors rejected on Friday the draft project regarding Bucharest's candidacy to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. After half an hour of debates, in which counsellors opinionated that the project is futuristic, unachievable, their vote rejected the project. read more...

Ireland lost 200 highly qualified IT jobs to Romania due to the deficit of well prepared graduates in the IT sector, Irish Independent reads in its online edition. Intel Ireland was on the short list to obtain a project but was advanced by Romania that put forward a better offer. read more...

Romania will have problems accessing instalments from the IMF if it will fail to comply to conditions in the IMF/EC agreement and the plan B would be take up loans fromthe market which is not a good thing, Romanian Finance minister Gheorghe Ialomitianu declared. read more...

Shops selling products made from hallucinogenic plants and located within 1.5 km of a school, dorm, hospital, church or train station have been banned in Bucharest, as per a decision by the city's council. read more...

Romanian unionists and employers on Friday signed the national collective work Contract which sets the minimum wage in the private sector at 700 lei (EUR1=RON4.2953) and increases wages of qualified workers and foremen. read more...

American GE Money, the financial services division of giant General Electric, has decided to leave Romania after five years during which it invested over 100 million euros, but without visible results. read more...

Constanta could become Romania's second busiest city on the shopping segment after Suceava, with two new malls in the process of being built - Maritimo and Cora -, which will bring investments in the city's shopping centres and hypermarkets to nearly 500 million euros. read more...

At least 100,000 Romanians earn net salaries of more than 1,000 euros per month (4,300 RON), i.e. 2.3% of the 4.3 million salaried employees, according to data centralised by the National House of Pensions and Other Social Security Rights (CNPAS) based on the number of insured at the end of September. read more...

Transactions involving Fondul Proprietatea (Property Fund) shares, conducted via the Central Securities Depository, can be sealed until Wednesday December 22nd at the latest, when the Fund is officially placed under the authority of the National Securities Commission (CNVM) and becomes ruled by capital market legislation. read more...

Romanian wood exports annually go beyond one billion euros and are mainly operated by foreign players, most of them Austrians, which have invested hundreds of million euros on the domestic market and are now directing production to foreign destinations where prices are 5-10% higher. read more...

The value of assets managed by mandatory private pension funds, pillar II, reached 4.15bn RON (967m euros) in late November, only 3% up from the previous month, according to the data provided by the Private Pension System Supervision Commission (CSSPP). read more...

A new accord with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is set to include conditions for new structural reforms related to workforce, infrastructure and investment, stated the IMF's mission chief to Romania, Jeffrey Franks, adding Romania is no longer viewed as a "mediocre student". read more...

Romsys, one of the biggest IT services provider domestically, with 24m-euro turnover in 2009, counts on 10% higher revenues next year, says Radu Voicu, who is to be promoted next month as the company's sales manager. read more...

Romania succeeded in reversing its image of a "mediocre student", thanks to the fact that the government in Bucharest weathered the motion of no-confidence and the protests against the proposed spending cuts and layoffs demanded by the IMF, the head of the IMF mission for Romania, Jeffrey Franks said in an interview for Bloomberg, quoted by Agerpres. read more...

National Central Bank counsellor, Adrian Vasilescu declared for the public television TVR1 that the recession in Romania is still present due to the 25% salary cuts. read more...

Romania changed its image from a mediocre student and won the trust of the IMF in 2010 after the government in Bucharest managed to survive the motions and protests to respect the IMF requests on spending and personnel cuts, IMF chief of mission to Romania Jeffrey Franks declraed in an interview for Bloomberg. read more...

According to sources on the market, the National Post Office Company was fined by the Competition Council with over 24 million euro representing 7.2% of its business profits. The accusation was brought by an abuse of its leading position on the market. read more...

Specialized Parliamentary Committees approved on Thursday, by unanimity the increase of the Health ministry budget to 5% of GDP and accepted all 128 amendments proposed by Senators and Deputies. read more...

The Constitutional Court decided to debate on December 22nd the complaints of the Social Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals on the law on education, Romanian news agency Agerpres informs. read more...

President Traian Basescu signed on Wednesday the decree to promulgate the law on pensions, the presidency informs. The law was also declared constitutional by the Constitutional Court earlier today. read more...