50th BSEC Parliamentary Committee Conference
Romania’s Parliament in the capital Bucharest hosts the 50th edition of the conference of BSEC Parliamentary Committee on Thursday. The Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC/OCEMN) is a regional international body designed to encourage and promote political and economic initiatives aimed at fostering co-operation, peace and stability in the Black Sea region. Established in 1992, BSEC acquired its legal identity in 1999 before including 12 member states with Serbia and Montenegro becoming members in 2004. In his opening address, George Ciamba, Secretary of State with the country’s Foreign Ministry (MAE), told the audience that BSEC was expected to become a regional platform of a dialogue designed to encourage and enforce regional economic co-operation while providing efficient tools to all member states in order to ensure their security and prosperity.
Romanian Government’s Start Up Nation Programme
Some 8,500 projects may join the Start Up Nation Romania Programme opened by the country’s government in 2017. Supposed to open in May 2017, the opening of the programme was delayed until June that year. However, 1,200 projects were already paid in the last year’s edition of the programme as minister Radu Oprea told Radio Romania on Thursday. Ştefan-Radu Oprea is the new Minister of Business Environment, Trade and Entrepreneurship, a former prefect of the southern Romanian county of Prahova. The Start Up Nation Romania Programme is mainly focused on encouraging SME businesses. European Commission’s Start-up and Scale-up Initiative aims to give Europe’s many innovative entrepreneurs every opportunity to become world leading companies. It pulls together all the possibilities that the EU already offers and adds a new focus on venture capital investment, insolvency law and taxation.
BNR Governor before Parliament’s Economic Committee
The governor of the Romanian central bank was invited to appear before the Economic Committee in the Romanian Senate on Thursday. Mugur Isărescu, governor of Romania’s National Bank, was summoned to explain BNR’s inflation forecast and its implications for the country’s economy. In January 2018, Romania’s central bank increased its benchmark interest rate for the first time in a decade, in an effort to counter rising inflation as the country experienced record economic growth. “We increased the key rate because of inflation and because we want to anchor inflationary expectations from the start,” Mr Isărescu told a press conference in January. “If you fail to act in due time, expectations don’t tend to be anchored and we wanted to avoid that.” However, BNR governor told senators on Thursday that „we do have our concerns”.
Alexandru Danga/adanga
