October 18, 2013 UPDATE
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Valentin Țigău, 18.10.2013, 19:53
Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta has announced he will pay an official visit to the United States to discuss about the strategic partnership between the two countries. Ponta will hold talks at the White House with the United States Vice President Joe Biden and American several ministers. He will also meet with representatives of the American companies Exxonmobil, Chevron. Motorola, IBM and Hewlett Packard. Victor Ponta will also meet with the president of the World Bank.
The Romanian Foreign Minister, Titus Corlatean, met on Friday in Bucharest with the Italian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marta Dassu. The two officials decided to increase the number of bilateral high-level meetings, the Romanian Foreign Ministry announced. Corlatean and Dassu reconfirmed the excellent Romanian-Italian ties, which mirror in the dynamics of the political and diplomatic dialogue as well as the good evolution of trade and Italian investment in Romania which, in 2012, stood at 11.4 billion euros.
Romania’s country rating is limited to weak prospects of economic growth and vulnerability to foreign financial shocks. The improvement of the rating depends on the fiscal consolidation which should continue and the improvement of bank assets quality, Moody said in a release.
The EU marked on Friday the Day against human trafficking. Romania is among the 18 member states which have fully transposed the community norms in the domain of human trafficking, into its national legislation. The European Commission has recently adopted new directives to contain this phenomenon. Among others, they provide for harsher penalties for traffickers and protection measures for the victims. The EU has drafted a strategy in the domain for the 2012-2016 period, which also includes a platform for civil society. Official statistical data show over 30 thousand people have been trafficked in the past five years, whereas the number of sentenced traffickers has decreased by 13%. 93% of the EU citizens express concern about the phenomenon and want joint actions to be carried out to contain it.
