Press Review - August 16, 2017

08.16.2017 By Oana Gavrila

Tourism Minister Seeks to Implement Tourist Registration System

Tourism minister Mircea Dobre wants to introduce and electronic system to register tourists checking into hotels, to eliminate forms filled in by hand.

There will be a special chapter in the tourism law for the implementation of an electronic registration system, he told Gandul in an interview, adding it is not OK for a person to start their vacation by filling in forms.

The minister said tax evasion would drop once the registration system is in place.

“We don't know how many tourists we have, where they come from, where they go, how long they stay, what they do, what interests them. It's all relative at this time. The statistics board is doing its best to collect this data but it's not all real,” he said.

Iohannis: Romanian Army Must Be Endowed, Ready to Face Current Challenges

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis attended Navy Day festivities Tuesday and talked about endowment plans for the army and the efforts Romania is making for the EU and NATO to recognize the major role the Black Sea has in the region.

"A state cannot be truly powerful if it cannot protect its citizens and ensure their security. We need an army that is endowed and ready to deal with current challenges successfully and that entails significant efforts in terms of endowment and modernization. The political consensus to direct 2% of gross domestic product to defense every year for the next decade is a sign of responsibility,” said Iohannis.

The president added the Black Sea area is of strategic importance with major military, political, economic, cultural and social roles in the region.

Just 30% of Loan Paybacks to Multinationals Will Be Tax Deductible As of 2018

Multinationals will no longer be able to deduce 100% of the money received as payback from Romanian branches, but will benefit from a deductible threshold of 30%.

The measure is to be adopted through an emergency decree amending the Tax Code, to be applied as of January 1, 2018.

Several foreign companies that invested in Romania allotted that money as loans not capital inflows and the reimbursement of those loans by Romanian companies to multinational parent companies are currently tax deductible.

Eurostat: Romania, Greece Have Fewest Cinemagoers in EU

Just 7.1% of Romanians aged over 16 had been to the cinema at least four times in 2015, while only 6.2% of Greeks are cinemagoers, according to Eurostat.

The most frequent cinemagoers in the EU live in France: in 2015, 29.3% of the population said they had been to the cinema at least four times.

They were followed by residents of Luxembourg (26.4%), Belgium (22.7%) and the Netherlands (21.9%).

In total in the EU, 17.7% of the population went to the cinema at least four times in 2015.