Romania’s assumed task to lower the budget deficit could prove more challenging in 2011 than it was last year, because it entails a bigger budgetary effort, a senior economist with BRD-Societe Generale said Friday. read more...

Romania's Government will ban the sale and possession of so-called "legal highs," plant-based psychoactive substances, under threat of fines of up to 100,000 lei (EUR1=RON4.2127) and 2-8 years in prison. read more...

Negotiations between trade unions and the management of the Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR have failed. BCR trade union representatives told HotNews.ro on Friday that starting today the employees no longer have a collective work contracts. Two employees have threatened hunger strike starting Monday, March 7. read more...

Romanian PM Emil Boc and Communications minister Valerian Vreme scheduled a meeting at noon on Friday with the head of Vodafone group Vittorio Colao and the head of Vodafone Romania Inaki Berroeta. read more...

Anca Boagiu, transport and infrastructure minister, is starting to have increasingly more in common with her predecessor, Radu Berceanu, as well as with other previous transport ministers, such as Ludovic Orban and Gheorghe Dobre, who, although they had 2 billion euros per year at their disposal, only talked about building motorways, but failed to walk the walk. read more...

A potential acquisition of UPC Romania by RCS&RDS, which would turn the new company into the owner of the biggest private communications infrastructure and the undisputed leader of the TV and Internet markets could be under scrutiny by the Competition Council for as much as six months, and the authority might require RCS to drop certain operations, the officials of Muşat & Asociaţii and Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen (NNDKP) told Ziarul Financiar. read more...

The government has dropped the rule according to which in local authorities only one can be hired per seven vacancies. The norm has been extended to consider the number of vacant jobs in an entire county, which means that, by cumulating jobs, more people can be hired than before. read more...

BCR Monetar, the biggest investment fund in Romania, with over 1.5 billion lei in assets, has become over its three years in business the "piggy bank" of peasants, after they sell their harvest, of monasteries, which raise money for their wintertime wood, as well as a cash management instrument for small entrepreneurs. read more...

The return to growth of agriculture in the last quarter of the year alongside the continued rise of industry helped the economy return to positive territory, as show detailed data of the 2010 GDP announced by the National Statistics Institute (INS). read more...

Bankers last year started a sterile war of refinancing deals, whose only outcome was improved coverage with guarantees, as many consumer loans were bundled into larger mortgage loans, but no additional sums were pumped toward clients. read more...

Domestic sugar producers say Romania is helplessly seeing sugar prices rise internationally, while being dependent on European imports. read more...

BRD Sogelease IFN S.A., the leasing division of BRD - Groupe Société Générale, concluded over 1,400 contracts in 2010, worth 99 million Euros, up 35% over 2009, according to a press release by the company. read more...

OTP Bank, the largest Hungarian lender, intends to increase its Romanian assets by up to 9% and it may buy loan portfolios from rivals in the country, the head of the local unit said, according to Mediafax, which quotes Bloomberg. read more...

Social Democratic Party (PSD) deputy Robert Negoita has claimed that representatives of Romanian fiscal authority ANAF demanded him bribes amounting to 500,000 euro to prevent fiscal controls on his real estate businesses. He told Antena 3 news channel that persons contacted him to "suggest" that he pay the money to be left alone. read more...

The apparatus of the Romanian Finance Ministry is too complicated, has little efficiency and in some areas is affected by corruption suspicions, according to a report produced by one of Romania's foreign lenders. read more...

Some 2,500 iPhone terminals have been sold in Cosmote and Germanos stores since mid-December, Cosmote Romania commercial manager Panos Makris announced on Thursday. read more...

Russian group Lukoil eyes the development of renewable energy projects in Bulgaria and Romania, company representative Vasily Zoubakine has told RIA Novosti. read more...

Romania’s leu rose slightly against the euro in mid trade Thursday and the central bank’s reference strengthened to a fresh ten-month high at 4.2016 units, from 4.2051 units a day earlier. read more...

Romanian private pension funds should take more risks, Labor Minsiter Ioan Botis said Thursday at the Mediafax Talks about Private Pensions conference, adding different risk levels would ensure a more efficient asset management. read more...

About half of Romanian contributors to mandatory private pension funds (Pillar II) have amassed less than 500 lei (EUR1=RON4.2016) in their pension accounts since May 2008 when the system was launched, Mircea Oancea, head of the country’s private pension regulator CSSPP, said Thursday. read more...