Romania Feed

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) are launching a new Investor Relations and Liquidity Support Program in Romania, to improve capital market visibility and stock exchange liquidity of up to three selected issuers.

The investors already active on the local real estate market are interested to consolidate their positions, but one can notice the absence of investors from a specific part of the world, says Mihnea Serbanescu, general manager of real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

Romania's final electricity consumption reached 47 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in January-November 2022, lower by 6.8% year-over-year, while the final electricity consumption in the local economy fell by 5.9%, the country's statistical office INS said on Monday (Jan 16, 2023).

UniCredit Bank, which is part of the UniCredit Group and one of the major banks in Romania, is listing on Monday (January 16,2023) the first corporate bonds issued this year, worth RON488.5 million.

Dacia Mioveni and Ford Otosan Craiova, the two car plants in Romania, manufactured more than 509,000 vehicles in 2022, 21% more than in 2021 and 3.9% more than in 2019, as per data from the country's carmakers association ACAROM.

Kosarom group, founded by Neculai Apostol, ended 2022 with EUR94 million turnover and expects EUR101 million turnover in 2023, according to the founder.

Daniel Ben-Yehuda, the head of Bucharest’s five-star hotel Sheraton and of Parc Hotel compound, says the five-star unit wants to reach the 2019 figures this year.

Car parts manufacturer Optibelt Power Transmission of Tautii-Magheraus locality, Maramures county, the local subsidiary of Germany’s Arntz Optibelt, ended 2022 with turnover worth around RON366.4 million (EUR74.3 million), up almost 25% from 2021, in line with ZF calculations based on company data.

Rockwool, a Danish company that produces mineral wool in a Prahova county plant, saw its turnover surge by almost 70% in 2022 amid rising demand for thermal insulation products.

Maxagro group, owned by brothers Ianco and Ioji Zifceak, cultivating 10,000 hectares with grain conventionally in Timis county and 1,800 hectares in an ecological system, plans to invest EUR10 million this year in irrigation systems and a fodder plant.

Nuclear power producer Nuclearelectrica (SNN.RO) is calling shareholders to vote on the 2023 spending and revenue budget on February 15.

Investments in commercial real estate assets in Romania reached a record high in 2022, of over EUR1.2 billion, the highest level since 2007, a significant increase compared to the usual average volume of about EUR900 million that Romania has had from 2014 to date, according to a report by real estate consulting firm Colliers.

Hospital and medical center network Arcadia, which operates in Moldavia, inaugurated the Medical Rehabilitation Hospital (Spitalul de Recuperare Medicala) in Iasi in 2022, following a more than EUR20 million investment.

Lucian Anghel, who ran Banca Romaneasca from January 2020 until December 2022, has taken over the position of Chief Risk Officer at EximBank after the completion of the merger between the two banks.

The net flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) stood at EUR10.2 billion in January-November 2022, Romania’s central bank said in its latest statement.

Romania's current account balance posted a deficit of EUR25.34 billion in January-November 2022, higher by almost EUR10 billion than EUR15.66 billion in the same period of 2021, central bank data showed on Friday (Jan 13, 2023).

New car registrations grew by 6.8% in 2022 versus 2021 and registrations of “electrified” vehicles increased by 49%, seeing a 21.7% market share, according to data released by the Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association (APIA) on Friday (Jan 13, 2023).

Following several years of constant global instability, people are gaining greater access to emerging technologies — including AI, web3, and tokenization — which is advancing the next generation of creativity, community and data privacy, according to the Accenture Life Trends 2023 report from Accenture.

Romania’s industrial production fell by 1.1% in unadjusted data in January-November 2022 versus the same period of 2021 and by 1.6% when adjusted for seasonality and number of working days, data from the country’s statistics board INS showed on Friday (Jan 13, 2023).

The vast majority of CEO respondents (98%) are bracing for an economic downturn characterized by geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruption, and ongoing COVID-19-related uncertainty, but appear split on its length, depth, and severity, according to the EY CEO Outlook Pulse – January 2023 that underline the uncertainty that looks set to define the business environment in 2023..