Newsflash 1.07.2013
For a round-up of domestic and international news click here
Leyla Cheamil, 01.07.2013, 14:09
Romania welcomes investment by companies from Shenzen, a booming economic region in China, where telecommunication giants, like Huawei and ZTE are based, and the economic relations can develop very well. The statement was made today by Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta upon his meeting with Shenzen mayor Tang Jie. On Tuesday, Ponta will be having talks with Chinese president Xi Jinping and the Prime Minister Li Keqiang. China is the last leg of the Romanian Prime Minister’s Asian tour, which also took him to Azerbaijan, Kazahstan and Uzbekistan.
On Monday Croatia became the 28th member of the European Union, following a decade of negotiations. With a population of 4.4 million people, Croatia is the second ex-Yugoslav state to become an EU member. With a high unemployment rate, Croatia had to implement a series of reforms in order to be able to join the bloc. The ceremony, which marked the country’s EU entry, has been attended by leaders of the European institutions and of several member states. Also today, Lithuania has taken over the EU rotating presidency, announcing as its top priorities for the next 6 months a series of measures aimed at resuming economic growth and fiscal discipline.
The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate adopted on Monday in Bucharest the Constitutional Court’s recommendations regarding the parliamentarians’ statute, with 391 votes in favour and 1 vote against. Previously, in the legal committees, senators and deputies removed from the statute two articles deemed unconstitutional.
The Romanian-German-French production “Matei, Child Miner” directed by the Romanian Alexandra Gulea won the Grand Prize and the Young Audience’s Prize at the Pesaro Film Festival held between June 24 and 30 in Italy. The title character is a child whose parents are working in Italy and who remains in Romania with his grandfather, a retired miner. The film is set against a sensitive social backdrop: thousands of Romanians who are working abroad leave their children home to be taken care of by relatives.
Household consumers will pay 8% more for natural gas in Romania, whereas gas prices for industrial consumers have gone up 3%. Food producers have warned that the latest hikes are likely to lead to 15% increases in food prices. Water prices are also to go up to 10% according to decisions by local authorities. But there is also good news: prices for roaming services in EU countries are going to drop under the new regulations adopted last year by the European Parliament. The minimum gross wages in Romania are also going to increase from 750 to 800 lei.
On July the 17th Romanian president Traian Basescu will be paying a formal visit to Chishinau, capital of the Republic of Moldova, an ex-soviet country with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population at the invitation of his Moldovan counterpart Nicolae Timofti, sources in Bucharest have today announced. Traian Basescu will be holding talks with the speaker of Parliament Igor Corman, with Prime Minister Iurie Leanca and other political leaders. The head of the Romanian state was invited in the Republic of Moldova by his counterpart, during the latter’s visit to Bucharest in April last year.
