What the newspapers say: July 28, 2008

Week-end floods in Romania made it to both the international and the local news. And, according to some newspapers, will still make it for about five years from now, since that’s how long it will take to put up an anti-disaster strategy.

Five people died this week-end in Northern Moldavia and thousands were evicted from their flood-hit villages. A PHARE project to fight floods is being put up, but it will take some five years before it is completed, or at least this is the term imposed by the European Union, officials in the Romanian Waters Administration declared, according to Romania Libera.

In one of the latest scandals, the head of the Anti-Graft Prosecution Office (DNA), Daniel Morar, will not be replaced, as most Liberals and Social-Democrats would wish, since the DNA was one of the very few Romanian institutions praised in the latest European Commission report, Evenimentul Zilei reads. Morar’s mandate ends on August 12.

In the construction-related businesses: the National Highways Company wants to lease the maintenance and operating works for the Bucharest – Pitesti and Bucharest – Constanta highways, a move that might lead to the introduction of highway taxes. Already existing taxes make it impossible to apply a new highway tax, at least for the Bucharest-Pitesti highway, but a bridge tax may be introduced on the road to Constanta. Officials already remind that the average price in Europe is 5 euro for 100 kilometers, same Evenimentul Zilei informs.

Speaking of expensive constructions: two energy giants prepare to open two modern thermal plants in Southern Romania and have already acquired some 140 hectares of land to do so, officials in the National Lignite Company declared for Romania Libera.

Investments in residential projects are just as popular these days, with over 14 billion euro being invested only during the first half of the year. The entire residential constructions market in 2007 was 20 billion euro, Gandul found out, mentioning that some 70,000 homes will be built before 2015, all around Romania.

Not as much of a good piece of news is that the life will once again get harder, despite all things going well. Same Gandul notes that the populist measures adopted by the Government this year will be dearly paid for next year. Increasing the minimum wage level and all pensions leads to a very high annual inflation rate, of some 8.1%, analysts say. Doubled by a current account deficit of 14% of the GNP, fueled by massive imports, this inflation rate will affect a lot of the Romanians’ income.

On the other hand, Romanians also have more and more opportunities to make a quick buck. The Iraqi ambassador in Romania, Adel Murad, addressed an appeal to all Romanian businessmen, calling them to invest in Iraq. In an interview for Cotidianul, Murad ensures Romanians that the country is much safer now and points at new oil exploitations being opened.