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Arab businessmen of the Gulf are interested in investing their petrodollars in Romania. Discussions on the subject will take place at the business forum hosted in Bucharest by the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,...

The Economic Forum of Bucharest represents the unique opportunity of bringing together to the same table the public and private business sectors of Romania and representatives of Romania and six other countries. Between March 8th and March 10th,...

• How would you characterize Romania"s cooperation with the countries in the Gulf area, and what is your outlook on the future of this cooperation?  

• Your Excelency, how does UAE face the global economic crisis? 

Romania is expected to return to economic growth in 2011, after a 1.2 percent drop in 2010. Even though, in the beginning of the crisis, the government didn"t seem to be aware of the effects of the international economic turmoil, in 2009 they...

The economy of Saudi Arabia relies on oil, as the government controls most of the economic activities. The kingdom serves as the leader of the OPEC, as it controls approximately 20% of the world"s proven oil reserves. It is also the number...

The economy of Bahrain is one of the most diversified of those in the Persian Gulf, hosting several multinationals, thanks to the well developed communication facilities and transport system.

The international crisis, the difficulty in securing foreign funding and asset depreciation have slowed the economic growth of the United Arab Emirates in 2010. The effects of the financial turbulence were felt the hardest in Dubai, which was...

Around 9% of the world"s oil reserves are located in Kuwait, as the oil sector accounts for half of the country"s GDP, and 95% of the budget revenues. Kuwaiti authorities have pledged to increase oil production to 4 million barrels a day...

Due to its dwindling oil resources, Oman has actively pursued a development plan with the objective of reducing the oil sector"s contribution to GDP to 9% by 2020.

Qatar can boast the largest economic growth in the world in 2010, even as the economic crisis continued to make its effects felt. The Qatari government sought to support the banking system, with direct investments in the domestic banks.

How much money do the Arabs have?

Global port operator DP World, which has also been present in Constanţa, since 2003, has seen an exponential increase in handled volumes, exceeding one million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container units) in 2007 and 2008. Since launching its...

Qatar Airways entered the Romanian market in January, thus beginning its plans to expand to Europe.

"Emirates Airlines" entered the Romanian market in 1997, to major interest from passengers for the destinations it covered.

Demand for loans in the agricultural sector has increased eight times in the past few years, Agriculture minister Valeriu Tabără claims.

The Fraud Squad (GF) and the National Customs Authority (ANV) will be disbanded, and their functions will be taken over by the National Tax Administration Agency (ANAF), according to a draft bill published on the website of the Ministry of Public...

Intercapital Invest, one of the most active independent brokerage firms in Romania, will enter a consortium with JP Morgan and BCR to intermediate the secondary offer of OMV Petrom (SNP),

The creation of Units 3 and 4 of Cernavodă will be delayed about a year, since the state needs to select new private partners to replace the four that pulled out of the project, said Mircea Ursache, a member on the Board of Directors of...

Up until recently, home insurance wasn"t exactly a hit with Romanians.

OTP Bank, the largest Hungarian lender, intends to increase its Romanian assets by up to 9% and it may buy loan portfolios from rivals in the country, the head of the local unit said, according to Mediafax, which quotes Bloomberg.

BRD Sogelease IFN S.A., the leasing division of BRD - Groupe Société Générale, concluded over 1,400 contracts in 2010, worth 99 million Euros, up 35% over 2009, according to a press release by the company.

After repeated price increases since the beginning of the year, the price of fuel is getting vertiginously close to the level of 6 lei/liter and could cause a domino of price increases for consumer goods.

The sale of the TV broadcasting rights for the football games of the !st League would be a real lifeline for most of the clubs in the first division.

And it"s not exactly chump change - it"s ten million dollars.

The official receiver of "Astra Vagoane Arad", "Romvag" and "Meva", companies which are part of the "International Railway Systems" (IRS) group, is looking for investors, to allow the successful reorganization of...

The elimination of the special reporting requirements of the FICs to the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) has sparked the concern of some of the BSE investors, who are concerned that the five financial investment companies will be less transparent...

• The quotations of grains, which until recently bore the brunt of the blame for rise of the price of food are now dropping 

Bankers think that the project which is currently being reviewed internally by the NBR, by which lenders may receive stock in the companies that have overdue loans, is not to the benefit of the institutions they are managing.

"OMV Petrom", the largest domestic company, last year made a net profit of 2.19 billion lei, up 163% over 2009, as the management of the company announced it would propose to shareholders the payment of dividends from last year"s...

The profitability of Romanian companies has not yet recovered, but there are great odds of growth in the future, considers Adrian Tănase, the manager of the stock mutual fund "ING Romanian Equity".

The Ministry of the Economy, the majority shareholder of "Oltchim" Râmnicu Vâlcea (OLT), yesterday announced that the government has begun the procedures for the privatization of Oltchim, and the consulting services for the sale of the...

• Interview with PSD senator PSD Valer Marian the vice-president of the Commission for investigating abuse, fighting corruption and for petitions  

The level of the total excise in effect this year is 76.6 Euros/1,000 cigarettes, according to the officials of the Ministry of Public Finance (MFP), which states that the total level of the cigarette excise for the 2011-2018 period was set by...

The measures to fight cigarette contraband are a priority for the National Customs Authority (ANV), which drew up the National Strategy for Fighting Illegal Cigarette Traffic, its representatives said. As such, the ANV has planned to improve,...

Reporter: How would you describe the domestic tobacco market?

Gilda Lazăr, corporate affairs director of JTI România, says that making a fine cigarette very much resembles the art of making a quality wine.

Tobacco entered Europe after Christopher Columbus"s discovery of America, in 1492. Tobacco was imported in 1518, in the Iberian Peninsula, by a Spanish missionary.

Cigarette maker "Galaxy Tobacco" (formerly called "Societatea Naţională Tutunul Românesc SA") has a hearing in court today, after the prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Department (DNA) sued the company in...

The company Electroputere Craiova, which specializes in the manufacturing of locomotives, last year cut its losses almost 2.5 times, from 39.5 million lei to 16.2 million lei. The financial results of the company were "helped" by the...

Sorin Ovidiu Vântu received another blow from the legal system: his request to challenge the judge, filed by his lawyers, was rejected. As a result, the case will still be tried by judge Camelia Bogdan.

The NYSE Euronext exchange was sued by several shareholders which are demanding the block of its planned $9.53 billion sale to Deutsche Boerse AG.

Two years after the expiration of the initial deadline for the listing of BCR on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the management of the bank remains cagey about the moment when it would begin at least the preparations for the listing of the bank,...

In an interview granted to BURSA discussing tax evasion, former Finance minister Sebastian Vlădescu said that cigarette smuggling is small potatoes compared to gas smuggling.