September 11, 2023 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 11.09.2023, 21:00

SCHOOL The Romanian
President Klaus Iohannis announced that the issue of drug consumption among
young people will be included on the agenda of the next meeting of the
country’s Supreme Council of National Defense. Attending the opening of the new
pre-university year at a school in Bucharest on Monday, he emphasized that this
phenomenon represents a serious challenge to national security. Klaus Iohannis
also said that he continued to support the increase in teachers’ salaries as of
January 1, 2024. He gave assurances that he remained firm and would support all
measures to make the commitments made by the Government this summer come true.
The new school year started, in Romania on Monday, for approximately 3 million
pupils and preschoolers. It will have 36 weeks of courses, and it is organized
in five modules, just like the previous one. The Green Week and
Doing School Differently will take place between September 11, 2023
– April 26, 2024 and can be set by schools in any of modules 1, 2, 3 or 4, in
intervals of 5 consecutive working days. The school year will end on June 21,
2024. The pupils entering the 5th grade will be the first to take an additional
high school entrance exam in the summer of 2027.

DEFICIT Romania’s trade deficit in the first seven months of this
year stood at 15.6 billion Euros, 17% lower as compared to the same period last
year, shows the latest data published by the National Institute for Statistics.
In this period, Romania’s exports totaled 55 billion Euros, 4.6% higher than
the similar period of the past year. At the same time, between January 1st
and July 31st 2023, Romania imported goods of 70 billion Euros, 1.1%
lower than in the same period of 2022. In July 2023, the country’s exports
stood at 8 billion Euros, while imports at 10 billion, which created a deficit
of 2 billion Euros. As compared to July last year, exports in July this year went
down by 3% while imports by 11.5%.

DRILL
The Romanian and US Naval Forces are jointly organizing, as of Monday until
Friday, September 15, a multinational exercise called Sea Breeze. It will take
place in the area of ​​responsibility of the Romanian Naval Forces in the Black
Sea and the Danube Delta and aims to develop teamwork between the participating
countries in the field of combating explosive devices, especially sea mines, so
that navigation can take place freely. Soldiers from Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine,
France and the UK are also taking part in the exercise.

FOOTBALL
Romania’s national football side is playing at home on Tuesday the selection of
Kosovo, in a game counting towards Group one in the preliminaries of the
European Championship due in Germany, next year. After five matches in the
group, with two wins and three draws, Romania boasts nine points presently
ranking second after Switzerland with 11 points. The group also includes
Belarus and Andorra. The first two sides will be playing in the final
tournament. Romania last qualified for a European football tournament in 2016
and our latest participation in a World Cup was in 1998.

(bill)