What the newspapers say: January 20, 2011

For West European countries, Romania and Bulgaria are the most attractive countries to extend their production on the average term in the world, one newspaper reads on Thursday. Rich Romanians pay hundreds of thousands of euro for a car to keep it in the garage and because of the lack of roads, they travel in the country with the car on a trailer. In politics, the Democrat Liberals plan an electoral alliance with UNPR, a recently formed party in the Parliament. Last but not least, Romanian shoe brand Clujana plans exports to Russia.

For West European countries, Romania and Bulgaria are the most attractive countries for investments in the world, even over the BRIC group – Brazil, India, Russia and China, according to Erste Bank. By 2015, labor force costs in China will increase up to the level of Eastern Europe and naval transports increases costs substantially, CNBC TV star Geoff Cutmore declared in a debate organized by Erste.

Therefore, Eastern Europe offers multiple advantages: a slower increase in labor costs, lower transports costs and the fact that they are EU member states. Erste Group President Andreas Treichl said the main problem of regional economies is that politicians have a too big a role.

Gandul reads about Romania’s Richie Rich’s who pay hundreds of thousands of euro for a car which they park in their garage. The most expensive car sold last year in Romania was a Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe of over 460,000 euro. Another two Romanians are the owners of a Ferrari 599 of 320,000 euro and a Rolls Royce Ghost of over 270,000 euro.

Football manager Cristea Opria admitted that he bought his expensive cars to impress. He confessed that when he travels across country, he prefers to have his Phantom on a trailer which he follows on a Mercedes due to the bad roads. 680 Romanians own cars more expensive than 200,000 euro.

In politics today, Evenimentul Zilei reads about the plans of Democrat Liberals to extent their collaboration for the 2012 elections. According to sources, if the Social Democrats will form an alliance with the Liberals, then UNPR will be forced into an alliance with the Democrat Liberals.

UNPR leader Crisian Diaconescu declared that his party is a small one and it will be more functional in an alliance than alone. The alliance might increase if Hungarian Democrats would decide to join in. According to sources, it was already invited. UNPR was formed in May 2010 by Gabriel Oprea and others who left the Social Democrats.

Romania libera reads that the Romanian shoe brand Clujana started negotiations to export to Russia in 2011. In 2010, the brand managed to export to France, Italy and Germany.