Press Review - February 4, 2016

02.04.2016 By Gabriela Stan

Coface Keeps Country Risk Assessment For Romania To B

Coface has kept the country risk assessment for Romania to B, a risk class indicating an unstable macroeconomic environment, capable to affect a company's historical payments, according to Macroeconomic Report Romania 2015.

Romania remains vulnerable due to the structural character of internal imbalances on microeconomic level through the high level of trade credit, through the extremely high interdependence between companies, by interrupting accelerated activity for many companies and the high level of rejected payment instruments.

Romanian companies attracted additional financial resources, mainly directed to long-term investments, but they did not generate supplementary income or higher productivity, so that many of the companies went insolvent, according to Coface.  (Adevarul)

Romanian Parliament Votes To Lift Immunity Of Ex-Minister Gabriel Oprea

On Wednesday, senators approved the National Anti-corruption Directorate’s prosecution request against former Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea. Oprea is charged with abuse of office, after he used motorcades over 1,600 times, including for personal interest.

The immunity lifting proceeding was passed with 102 pros, 30 cons and one abstention. The vote was secret. Gabriel Oprea asked his colleagues to approve the prosecution request, saying that he is innocent.  (Evenimentul Zilei)

First Home Program Gets Over RON1.69B For Guarantees This Year

Government-guaranteed mortgage lending First Home program will have a guarantee budget of over RON1.69 billion in 2016, and none of the participating banks has informed the Finance Ministry about its intention to withdraw from the project so far, the ministry said in a statement.

Last week, Raiffeisen made the surprising decision to require a higher down payment from customers taking out a mortgage loan, even before the debate over the giving in payment bill was resumed in the Parliament. The bank decided to raise the down payment for standard mortgage loans to 35% (lei) and 40% (euros). Romania’s central bank regulations say the minimum down payment for such loans is 15% (lei) and 25% (euros).

“The decision to raise the required down payment for mortgage loans was because of the impact we estimate the enforcement of the new mortgage lending law will have on the risk taken by our bank and if no clarifications are provided, we will stop selling First Home loans," Steven van Groningen, CEO of Raiffeisen Bank said.  (Romania Libera)

ANCOM: Most Customer Complaints Targeted Mobile Telephony Services In 2015

Nearly half of customer complaints submitted to Romania’s telecom market regulator ANCOM in 2015 targeted mobile telephony services, 5% more than in 2014.

The main complaints targeted the contractual relationship with the providers of electronic communications services.

Mid-2015, Romanians were using 22.7 million active SIM cards (based on subscription and pre-pay services), according to ANCOM.

ANCOM received and solved last year over 2,000 complaints from communications users in Romania, 19% more compared to 2014. Most customer complaints targeted the electronic communications services provided by RCS&RDS (15%), Telekom Romania Mobile Communications (12%), Vodafone Romania (11%), Orange Romania (10%) and Telekom Romania Communications (10%). (Puterea)

EU Tobacco Directive To Be Transposed Into Romanian Legislation By May 20

 The Romanian Government decided that the EU Tobacco Products Directive should be transposed into the Romanian legislation by May 20, 2016, Health Ministry said in a statement.

At the same time, the draft law on establishing the conditions for the production, presentation and sale of tobacco products will be sent for approval to all the institutions in charge starting with February 8.

Health Ministry also stressed that it pays "special attention to the transposing of Directive 2014/40/EU into the national legislation, and strongly believes that the provisions of the normative act will support the decrease of tobacco consumption prevalence, targeting mainly teenagers and youths".

Thus, all cigarette packs should have the same shape (standardized). Moreover, the European directive bans the use of flavors in cigarettes, which facilitates smoking by hiding tobacco aromas. EU officials also want to ban slim cigarettes, menthol cigarettes or fruit-flavored cigarettes, so that they would no longer be attractive to teenagers and youths. (Adevarul)