The Competition Council fined three companies, Interfruct, Albinuta Shops and Profi Rom Food with a total fine of 16.7 million lei, about 4 million euro, for fixing selling prices of vegetables and fruits. read more...

Republic of Moldova’s interim President, Marian Lupu, thanked his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu for the financial support offered to his country, saying that he appreciates the gesture even more considering that it was made in times of crisis, Romanian news agency Mediafax reports. read more...

Romania should maintain its goal to adopt the euro in 2015, President Traian Basescu said Wednesday on national television TVR, adding he had talks on the subject with the prime minister and the central bank governor. read more...

An investment fund (Phemus Corporation) registered at the same address as Harvard Management Company, an entity part of the prestigious US university Harvard that manages 27bn dollars' worth of assets, is the majority shareholder in the biggest forest owner in Romania, Scolopax SRL of Focşani. read more...

Germany's Lidl retailer, which entered the Romanian market by acquiring Plus discount store network, has over the past two weeks posted tens of offers for positions with the company on recruitment websites, but has not communicated any data on the number of stores set to be opened or on their location. read more...

Romanians working abroad in 2010 sent over 4.5bn dollars (3.4bn euros) back home, slightly down, however, from 4.9bn dollars (3.5bn euros) in the previous year, according to the calculations presented by MoneyGram, one of the main players in money transfer business globally, on the basis of World Bank data. read more...

At least 2.1 million Romanians work in EU member states, most of them in Italy, Spain and Germany; this is the first official figure released by European Commission representatives. read more...

The Regional Development and Tourism Ministry (MDRT) is tendering modernisation and rehabilitation works for 1,386 km of county and local roads of eight counties, with the total estimated value of these projects amounting to 1.78bn lei (436.6m euros), VAT not included. read more...

CFR Infrastructură and Termoelectrica, state-owned companies with spectacular historic losses, are at the centre of the scandal generated by the reservations the EU voiced about the calculation of Romania's 2010 budgetary deficit and public debt, with Finance Minister Gheorghe Ialomiţianu discovering on this occasion that the respective companies have not even filed in their financial statements for 2007-2008. read more...

PM Boc declared on Wednesday that he is using a tablet PC without any problems related to national security because he only sends public data through the gadget, Romanian news agency Agerpres reports. He revealed his email: emilboc09@yahoo.com. read more...

Former Agriculture minister Ioan Avram Muresan was sentenced to seven years of prison for embezzlement by Higher Court of Justice judges, Romanian news agency Mediafax reads. That decision can be contested. Muresan was indicted on December 18, 2003 by anti graft prosecutors. read more...

The government approved the emergency ordinance ruling a supplementary memorandum with the EU to mark the final stage of the financial assistance from the EU worth 5 billion euro structured in five installments. Romania will receive the last installment of 0.15 billion euro. read more...

Anti graft prosecutors indicted on Wednesday 62 police agents at the Siret customs, North Romania and 4 customs officers from the same customs point, accused of bribe taking, bribe offering and supporting criminal networks, a press release of the institution reads. 49 of them are in temporary arrest while 17 are free. read more...

The IMF has “definitely”no doubt to the quality of data on its 2010 budgetary deficit, Romania’s representative to the IMF, Mihai Tanasescu declared in an interview for RFI radio. read more...

Nokia announced on Wednesday that it will decrease the total number of employees by 4000 people by the end of 2012 and it will mostly lay off personnel from Denmark, Finland and Great Britain. The measure is part of the producer’s plans to cut operational costs by 1 billion euro for 2013. In Romania, Nokia will lay off about 120 employees. read more...

The Senate rejected on Tuesday the draft law eliminating from the law regulating the National Integrity Agency the obligation of presidents, vice presidents, secretaries and treasurers of union federations and confederation to declare their wealth. read more...

Pope Benedict XVI sent on Monday red eggs to the Romanian gypsies who occupied on Friday the San Paolo basilica, one of the oldest in Rome, Ansa news agency reports, quoted by Mediafax. read more...

The spark plug, the element that ignites engines with internal combustion might be replaced by lasers that will increase the efficiency of the engine and might eliminate problems related to excessive usage, Romanian and Japanese researchers announced. The team will present the project at Baltimore, in more detail, at a press conference on May 1st. read more...

Bourse companies' shareholders this week are discussing the disbursement of dividends from last year's profits, with over 2.4bn lei (580m euros) being at stake. read more...

One of the reasons why the unemployment rate registered in Romania fell to less than 6% in March, reaching the last twelve months' low, might be expansion of informal employment, considering the number of salaried employees has gone down by more than 200,000 people over the past year. read more...