Radio România Internațional

Tag: ratings

  • April 19, 2023

    April 19, 2023

    VISIT The president of Romania
    Klaus Iohannis is carrying on his visit to Brazil today. He travels to Rio
    de Janeiro, where he has meetings scheduled with the deputy governor and the deputy
    mayor of the city, and will pay tribute to the World War II heroes. On Monday, Mr.
    Iohannis met with his counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The two officials
    signed a joint statement on the development of bilateral relations. Klaus
    Iohannis assured his counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of Romania’s
    support for advancing the EU – Brazil agenda through projects designed to
    benefit citizens. This is the first stage of the Romanian president’s
    south-American tour, which also includes Chile and Argentina. The goal is to rekindle
    the top-level dialogue with these countries and to present Romania’s position,
    as an EU and NATO member, with respect to the war launched by Russia in
    neighbouring Ukraine.


    AGRICULTURE A
    simple motion tabled by the opposition against the agriculture minister Petre
    Daea has been dismissed in the Chamber of Deputies today. The motion was
    discussed in parliament on Tuesday. The initiators argued that
    Daea
    was directly responsible for the steep rise in the prices of basic foodstuffs, for
    the poor handling of the swine fever and avian influenza crises, and also for
    the failure to secure EU funding for the Romanian farmers affected by the grain
    imports from Ukraine. The agriculture minister said none of the allegations
    were based on actual figures. On the other hand, he is set to discuss with his
    Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Solskyi today, about the situation created by the duty-free
    Ukrainian grain imports to the EU. Last week, Poland and Hungary, followed by
    Slovakia, announced a temporary ban on these imports. Poland also suspended
    grain transit on its territory, but following talks between the two parties an
    agreement was reached on Tuesday to resume transit, provided that the grains
    are not sold in that country. Hungary also announced that Ukrainian grain
    shipments would be sealed and monitored while on Hungarian territory. In
    Bucharest, the Social Democratic Party intends to persuade the ruling coalition
    to temporarily suspend these imports, in order to protect Romanian farmers, in
    the absence of sufficient compensation from the European Commission. Brussels
    on the other hand finds the measure unacceptable and has called for coordinated
    decisions, while promising a new aid package for the affected farmers.


    ART Since the
    start of the Timisoara – 2023 European Capital of Culture programme this
    February, over 12,000 Romanian and foreign art lovers have visited the National
    Art Museum in Timişoara, western Romania, to see the first retrospective
    exhibition devoted to Victor Brauner. Probably no other exhibition in the
    history of the museum has attracted so many visitors as ‘Victor Brauner: Inventions
    and magic did in only two months, the museum director Filip Petcu said on
    Monday. Some 100 works, including paintings, drawings, sketches, etchings and
    documents by the Romanian surrealist artist are on display in Timişoara. Of
    these, 40 are on loan from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, while others have been
    made available by Saint-Etienne Metropole, Musee Cantini Marseilles and other
    museums or private collections in Romania and abroad.


    FINANCE One of
    the indicators taken into account by Fitch Agency when improving Bucharest’s
    long-term issuer default rating was the adjustment of expenditure to revenues, the
    mayor Nicuşor Dan announced on Wednesday. In a Facebook post, he says that the
    municipality’s efforts to achieve financial stability are beginning to yield
    fruit, given that Fitch has improved Bucharest’s standalone credit profile from
    ‘BBB+’ to ‘A’, a class higher than the national rating, which means a good
    capacity to meet financial obligations. On April 15, Fitch Ratings reconfirmed
    Bucharest’s ‘BBB-‘ ratings for long-term foreign and local currency debt and
    upgraded the outlook from negative to stable. Last month Fitch had also
    reconfirmed Romania’s BBB-/F3 rating for long and short-term foreign currency
    debt and upgraded the outlook from negative to stable. With a population of approx.
    2.16 million, Bucharest accounts for over 30% of
    Romania’s economy, and its local wealth level is more than four times the
    national average.



    USA
    Fox News, the TV channel of choice of US Conservatives, has agreed to pay USD
    787.5 million to the voting technology company Dominion, after a last-minute
    settlement to avoid a lawsuit concerning its coverage of the 2020 presidential
    elections, France Presse reports. Dominion had originally claimed USD 1.6 bln.
    The settlement saves the pearl of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire from what the New
    York Times described as the defamation trial of the century. The lawsuit was generally
    viewed in the US as a test for the limits of the freedom of expression
    guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and of the fight
    against misinformation. (AMP)

  • December 12, 2015

    December 12, 2015

    COUNTRY RATING– Moodys has changed the outlook on Romania’s Baa3 government ratings to positive from stable, a communiqué issued by the Romanian Finance Ministry on Saturday shows. According to the same source, the decision made by the agency reflects Romania’s significant progress in correcting its macroeconomic imbalances, reducing the economy’s vulnerability to external shocks and paving the way for robust economic growth. Moody’s forecasts Romania’s economic recovery to gain further momentum in 2016, thanks to a robust expansion of private consumption and investment as well as solid public consumption growth, which will allow real GDP growth to accelerate to 4.1% in 2016, from 3.5% in 2015. Moodys has also taken note of Romania’s sizeable fiscal adjustment in the recent past, leading to a significant reduction of the government’s fiscal deficit and contributing to a stabilization of the government’s debt-to-GDP ratio. In August, Fitch Ratings reconfirmed Romania’s Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) at ‘BBB-‘ and ‘BBB’, respectively, with a stable outlook.



    DRAFT BUDGET– The Romanian Parliaments specialist committees continue debates on the state draft budget for 2016. The committees will also convene tomorrow, and the final vote is expected next Wednesday, in the plenary session of the Romanian Parliament. The Social Democratic Party has expressed satisfaction with the current form of the budget bill, saying that it respects the projection made by the former left wing government, in terms of fiscal relaxation and economic growth. In turn, the Liberals have said that, to a large extent, the budget is satisfactory under its current form, small adjustments being likely to be made during debates by the committees, without however expecting substantial changes.



    CORRUPTION- In Romania, Prince Paul Lambrino is today being brought to the Court of Appeal in Brasov, with the prosecutors making a temporary arrest proposal in a file on illegal return of property. He was taken into custody yesterday by the anti-corruption prosecutors, whereas a businessman and a lawyer are under home arrest, and four other people are placed under judicial control in the same lawsuit. According to the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, the indictees set up a criminal group which set as ultimate goal to obtain the properties unlawfully claimed by Prince Paul. The estimated value of the damage is some 136 million Euros. A number of politicians, including the Liberal Ioan Oltean, have been investigated recently for involvement in cases of illegal return of property or illegal compensation granted by the National Authority for Property Restitution.



    ADDRESS-Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, has made a request stating his wish to address Parliament next week, on December 16. The Presidential Administration has made public the presidents intention to speak before Senators and Deputies a year after he took office. Klaus Iohannis has sent a letter, in that respect, to the speakers of the two chambers of the Romanian Parliament



    SPORTS– Romanias national football team will find out its opponents in the 2016 European Championships in France, after the group stage draw in Paris. For the first time, there will be 24 participating teams, which will be drawn into six groups of four teams each. The 15th edition of the European Championships will unfold between June 10 and July 10. This will be Romanias fifth participation in a European Championship final tournament (1984, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2016). Romanias best performance was in 2000, when it advanced to the quarter-finals from a group with Germany, Portugal and England before falling to eventual runners-up Italy.


    (Translated by: Diana Vijeu)