Romania | News

More than 7,300 work permits have been issued in January 1 – September 30, 2020 for foreign citizens seeking work in construction sector in Romania, the data supplied by the country’s General Inspectorate for Immigration, shows.

Sphera Group (SFG.RO), which manages restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands in Romania and develops the KFC brand in the Republic of Moldova and Italy, continues to expand the Taco Bell business in Romania, by opening a new restaurant in Brasov, within the AFI Palace shopping center.

Apartment prices in Romania’s large cities grew 2.4% in October 2020, after a decline of 0.9% in September, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fashion Days, the largest online fashion retailer in Romania, expects to end the year with some 550 million lei sales on the local market, an increase of more than 60% on the previous year, when local sales stood at RON325 million.

Germany’s Metro is trying again after two years to sell its real estate portfolio in Romania. The group seeks to sell and lease back the space of nine stores in its network, to streamline operations and secure cash.

The deal European giants Deutsche Telekom and Orange have been negotiating over consolidation of their operations in Romania is one step away from an official announcement: Romtelecom, the fixed service division of Telekom Romania, will be acquired by Orange Romania.

German-held discount grocery retailer Lidl is opening a new store in Alba Iulia, central Romania, reaching 280 stores on the local market.

Sales of computers reached a decade high in Romania in the second quarter, as demand for technology skyrocketed due to the COVID-19 crisis, when companies, schools and authorities found themselves having to operate remotely.

Romania will not shut down its economy as it did during the two-month state of emergency in spring, finance minister Florin Citu said Thursday in a radio interview.

McDonald’s restaurant chain will continue development in Romania in 2021, but the figures depend on the pandemic, says Paul Dragan, who took over as CEO from Daniel Bloaje this summer.

New electric and hybrid cars registrations increased by 9% to almost 5,400 units in January-September, Romania’s Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association (APIA) data show.

Employees in Cluj are the best paid in Romania in 2020 for the second year in a row, earning 10% above the overall market, followed by employees in Bucharest (+4%) and Ploiesti (+1%), the Mercer – Total Remuneration Survey showed Wednesday.

Zoppas Industries, which operates a plant in Timisoara in Romania, posed 792 million lei revenue last year, flat on 2018, publicly available data show.

The NN Group, which owns life insurance company NN Asigurari de Viata in Romania, has earmarked 31.9 million lei for capital for its new entity NN Asigurari, a general insurance business, part of NN Romania, Gerke Witteveen, interim CEO of NN Romania, told ZF.

The office space surface area traded in capital Bucharest and in Romania’s large cities exceeded 200,000 square meters (sqm) in January-September 2020, of which the net demand accounts for nearly 40%, while relocations and contract renegotiations make up for the rest.

There is room for growth and even doubling of Romania’s food industry, says Jean Richard de Latour, the French executive who runs the local operations of retailer Carrefour.

NN Romania, the leading life insurer and private pension fund manager in Romania, will expand its portfolio into home insurance starting October, the company announced Friday.

Romania will sign a financing agreement totaling $8 billion with the United States for the refurbishment of one nuclear reactor and the building of two new reactors at the Cernavoda nuclear facility in Romania, US ambassador Adrian Zuckerman said.

The Meron coffee shop chain, founded in 2015 by Bogdan Ciocian in Cluj Napoca, will be opening a new coffee shop, in central city of Brasov, on October 10, following an investment of over EUR100,000, reaching a 17-unit network in Romania.

Romania ranks again 45 th out of 163 countries and is surpassed by all the other EU member states, according to the 2020 Social Progress Index, which analyzes the quality of life and social wellbeing and is conducted by the non-profit organization Social Progress Imperative with the support of Deloitte. Romania registers a score of 78.35 points out of 100, slightly higher than last year, which places it among the ranking’s third category countries, after Barbados, Bulgaria and Mauritius.