Bicaz Canyon

Romania is a diverse country, full of medieval structures and architecture, while also having beautiful natural surroundings. Almost half of the country is covered in natural and semi natural ecosystems.

This South-Eastern European country is becoming increasingly popular with tourists, for its seaside resorts and rich history. The city center of Brasov holds many stunning buildings, such as the Council Square or the Black Church, as well as the many ancient medieval castles in Transylvania. For those who want to visit these historical sites, it is worth staying in accommodation close to the city. Nearby hotels will provide a quick commute to and from the town centre. Internet facilities are well developed and readily available so you can play Party poker or book a tour for one of the famous sites. It is becoming a fast growing country in terms of tourism and travel. Visitors are always intrigued to visit the Transylvanian cities, such as Sibiu and Targu Mures, and explore the ancient towns which hold much more than just legends of vampires, which actually don’t quite play a role in Romania.

Alternatively, tourists can explore the forests and natural landscapes of Romania. The country has one of the largest areas of undisturbed forest in the whole of Europe. Almost half of Europe’s brown bears and wolves inhabit the Romanian forests, amongst 400 other species of mammals. The animals live amongst 4000 plant species, 23 of which are considered natural monuments and more than 1000 are rare.

Tourists can visit one of the 13 national parks or the biosphere reserves, which together span 10000 km2. The Danube Delta reserve Biosphere, is a huge wetland complex, which has been recognized as Europe’s largest and least damaged wetland. It is an excellent opportunity for tourists to see endangered and rare species of native plants and insects.

Half of this beautiful and protected land has been added to the World Heritage List. Visitors can discover the Bicaz canyon, look out onto the Piatra Craiului Mountains or admire the Red Lake in Harghita.

The Red Lake in Harghita County

Because citizens of more affluent countries like the U.S., England, Germany and Canada who want to have cosmetic surgery cannot take advantage of their health policies, they seek financial solution elsewhere. Countries like Costa Rica and Thailand have benefitted greatly from visiting citizens of richer countries seeking a bargain.  Lipo prices for just one area, for example, would cost each person anywhere from $3,000 to $7,500. In Thailand, you can get your legs lipoed for a thousand dollars and change! Labor cost, from surgeon salaries to the nurses, is responsible for much of the discount. In the Middle East, UAE neighbor Lebanon is experiencing a boom from Emirates tourists seeking cheaper costs for a facelift, tummy tuck, breast augmentation, nose surgery, etc.

Because the U.S. is the most expensive country for some plastic surgery procedures, Americans are among the most sought-after medical tourists. In Europe, the most traveled to countries for inexpensive liposuction are Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Greece and Malta. They can also find inexpensive liposuction in the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Singapore and Thailand. In Latin America, the most popular countries are Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama; South Africa is also popular destination. Romania equals most countries in medical standards and it is ramping up its medical services. As a testament, the Romanian Association of Plastic Surgeons billed its latest yearly convention the “Present and Future in Plastic Surgery”. Still, Romania does not seem to be widely perceived as an option for medical tourism while other CEEC started to profit from the huge potential of the market.

But maybe it is also the risk factor when you are considering travel to a foreign country for plastic surgery. One risk is that you will have lowered immune system protection after surgery which commonly makes people even more vulnerable to foreign diseases. There is a delay in healing. Often, after liposuctionn surgery, a patient may develop fat clots as well as blood clots. Clinic certification is one criterion you should not skip. A hospital may be a safer choice for major procedures. As always in anything that involves a large financial and personal involvement, do your research.

Guest post written by: Hetty Proudhonne,  traveler and working for Plasticsurgeryguide.com

Agriculture in Romania is an interesting topic. Even though roughly some 30% of the Romanian labor force are working in the agricultural sector, it does not contribute to more than 8-9% of GDP (figures from 2005). That is not to say that agriculture in Romania has to be unproductive or has to face unfavorable conditions. Quite the opposite is true. Romania, has a potentially extremely competitive agricultural sector. Smart investors know this and have been building modern and successful agricultural farms in the past years. Romania-Central.com is therefore happy to announce the first Agri-Business conference ever held in Romania. Here is the text, submitted by Dana Bucur. Thank you.

Greenway Invest is pleased to present the first agri-business conference ever organized in the history of Romania focussing on the opportunities of running a successful agricultural operation in Romania.   Designed in association with Mr Alastair Dickie and Mr Doug Spinney, this event is dedicated to the international investors, farmers, suppliers of agricultural inputs, executives and consultants and all those interested to invest and work in agribusiness in Romania. Since joining the EU in 2007, Romania has accelerated its economic progress and is in a superb geographical location to link Europe to the growing markets in the Middle East and Asia, Western Europe or worldwide. With its large, rich and fertile land asset, excellent logistic links by air, land, Danube and Black Sea and a stable socio- political regime the country presents a prime opportunity for investors looking for a solid return. You can get a detailed programme here.   The conference has a host of key speakers providing a wealth of knowledge in the important areas of agribusiness. Providing potential investors with the essential information and answers they need.   The event takes place at Howard Johnson in Bucharest, Romania between June 16 to 18th 2010.

The agenda is the following:

• June 16th 2010 – a dinner (optional)
• June 17th 2010 – the conference day
• June 18th 2010 – a field trip to 2/3 farms and/or a mill near Bucharest, Romania (optional).

The topics of the conference are related to the macroeconomic aspects, legal and fiscal elements of agribusiness Romania, sources of finance and practical debates on farming, livestock, trading and logistic. All details of the agribusiness Romania conference you can find here: http://www.agrimanagement.ro/conferinta. The registration form you can find it here.
Welcome to the agribusiness universe of Romania! I hope you find this event interesting / useful in order to participate.

This article covers two sections: the first with a biography of Maria, the second about her art and music.

Biography: The Life of Maria Tanase

Maria Tanase was born on 25th September of 1913 as third child to Ana (Munteanu) and Ion Coanda Tanase in a suburb of Bucharest, Romania. She inherited from her parents her love to music in general and in particular to Romanian folk music. Maria never received a formal training, but some lessons in her school where she was also mentioned to be on stage, just as at “Cărămidarii de Jos” in 1921.

For a long time, few things have been known about her time during 1939 and 1944, when Romania fell under the dictatorship of Marshall Ion Antonescu and his fascistic, anti-Semitic allies from the “Garda de Fier” (Iron Guard) while Maria and her friends were modern and democratic. Her lover, Armand Calinescu – who made the imprisonment of the fascist leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu happen in 1938 – was murdered by Iron Guardist just one year after, in late 1939. The fascistic Government prohibited airing the songs of Maria Tanase as they accused her to alter “authentic” Romanian folk music. They destroyed also most of the existing recordings of Maria Tanase, yet, some survived. Nevertheless, Maria was still popular and was asked by the very Ministry to sing at a festival. She agreed, but only under the condition that her Jewish friends were not to be deported. Furthermore, she used the occasion to stress the merits of her Jewish friend, the music ethnologist Harry Brauner.

After WW II Maria Tanase continued her career under the now communistic regime and continued to represent Romania and its folk music in various countries. Her journeys included the former communist countries, but she toured often to destinations such as New York, too. She took part in some films, such as “Romania” (1947), acted 1945 in Leo Tolstoy’s play “The Living Corpse” and 1956 in “Horia” by Mihai Davidoglu. She received several honours and prizes for her cultural activity, but soon, Maria Tanase shall die from lung cancer, on 22th of June, 1963 at the age of 49.

The Music of Maria Tanase

When it comes to the art and music of Maria Tanase it seems best fitting to let Maria speak for herself. This for, Romania Central decided to translate an interview originally aired on SRR and available on YouTube.

Maria Tanase:
I was born in the old Caramidarilor suburbs, the suburbs where vegetables, fruit trees and flowers grow. In my father’s garden with apricots scent, with blossomed trees and talkative women, wives of simple hard-working people, with noisy and naughty boys who were covering the hills and gardens. There, in the Caramdarilor suburbs, is the place where I spent my childhood, I cried, I laughed and also there I sang.

Interviewer:
What songs have you interpreted?

Maria Tanase:
Folklore songs, I have never sang anything else besides Romanian folklore songs. Coming from the surroundings and from afar to the town, the peasants hidden in our suburbs, when finishing their work, with voices something full of passion somethings mild, they sang the songs from their homes. From them I have learned to sing, from them, from my father and my mother. For a long time persisted in my soul those sad, slowly, with cursing, revengeful, revolting feelings, wailing and swing songs, wedding songs.

Interviewer:
Your repertoire is very rich, very varied! How do you compose it?

Maria Tanase:
In my journeys along the countryside, I search and listen carefully and patiently the peasants’ songs. Then I try to enter and understand the music, the rhythm and the words’ meaning, mainly to understand the words sense. I try to find the traditions/habits specific to the region, and then the process is quite complicated, being based on observation, concentration and on difficult, thorough and persevering work. I do not interpret them immediately, my songs, collected songs. Primarily, I leave them to sound in my heart, and much later, months or even years later I pass them to the people. Years or months later I run them further on.

Interviewer:
How many songs of this kind you have on your repertoire?

Maria Tanase:
Almost 400.

Interviewer:
And which of them are your favorites?

Maria Tanase:
I have to admit that I have never sung a song that I do not love. But it is true that among them I have a few that are more dearly to me than others. I do not know why. Maybe because they are talking in the warm pace of doinas [a doina is a Romanian song of grief, Romania-Central.com], of the past and difficulties of our peasants and others talk about our days.

Interviewer:
In the last couple of years your repertoire has enriched with many original songs. Where you have collected them from?

Maria Tanase:
From everywhere. From almost all regions that I visit with my song: from Fagaras, Cluj, Radauti, Moldova, Oltenia, Banat.

Interviewer:
Do you want to talk us about your latest folkloric discovery?

Maria Tanase:
More than taking about it, allow me to sing it to you. It is about a swing song, collected by Cicerone Teodeorescu, from Nasaud region that starts like this…
(listen beginning at in the video 4:28).

Translation by Romania-Central.com

Please note that updated, detailed data is linked from the resume below for 2009 or on our Economy page.

Romania after one Year of Crisis

2009 was a very tough year for Romania’s economy, which proved virtually all forecasts from the year before wrong. Romania did not record the expected growth, but did a big step backwards after being hit by the crisis. Needles to mention, that no analyst could foresee such a development before the outbreak of the crisis, which happened to affect Romania beginning only during spring 2009 to its full extent. FDI inflows in the first quarter were even higher than in the first quarter of 2008. Yet, though higher than anticipated by the IMF, FDI in 2009 dropped likewise. Overall the Romanian GDP fell by some 7.7 %. The situation on the labor market – formerly characterized by notable shortages in labor supply and low unemployment – reversed completely.

Main driver have been falling exports due to a falling external demand and bad access to credit as international finical markets froze. Internal demand, formerly heavily based on credit was the second main driver of the former growth and thus, of the recession in 2009. The only positive things to be mentioned are a relatively low inflation rate and a shrinking Current Account deficit. However, both developments are again the result of a massive breakdown of disposable income and credit, which also resulted in dramatically shrinking import volumes. A rapid and massively dropping exchange rate for Romania contributed significantly to this development. The public deficit continued growing and Romania was one of the first which had to apply for a credit at the EU and the IMF. Though the Romanian Government denied last year that Romania was in danger of declaring bankruptcy and the huge credit of 20 Bln Euro was meant just a “safety belt for the private sector” the credibility of this notion is still missing.

The crisis between government and the president Traian Basescu did not ease the economic hardships, but delayed the payout of the second part of the IMF credit to 2010 and set the Romanian currency under further pressure. Coping with the political instability will be a major task for 2010 in order to strengthen the credibility in Romania and its economy.

Romania: Economic Outlook 2010

For 2010 the economy of Romania is widely believed to start recovering, yet slowly and not all of the massive drawbacks can be overcome in 2010. Especially the Romanian labor market will remain in a bad shape.

The former level of unemployment in Romania of just some 4.4% is not expected to be reached again before 2014, though a first decrease of 1.4% to 6.2% is expected for 2010. Real wages in Romania experienced a negative growth -2.3% though average gross salaries grew by some 5%. However, the times of double digit growth rates seem to be gone for the next few years when it comes to salaries in Romania.

The GDP of Romania is estimated to grow by 0.5% during 2010 (CNP, some banks even estimate a growth up to 1.9%), but the former level of 2009 will not be reached before the end of 2011 according to the latest CNP estimations. The very same is true for exports from Romania, which have been a main driver of growth during the past years.

Inflation is believed to remain on the low side for Romanian standards, yet still on the high side for overall trends in the EU. The Exchange rate for Romania’s currency is estimated to stabilize at 4.25 RON/EUR, yet this estimate has not remained unchallenged. Several analysts expected the LEU to drop until 4.5 RON/EUR. On the other hand, during the first half of January 2010 the RON appreciated considerable for some days, but without convincing that the effect will stand the test of time.

Charts: Forecasts for the Economy of Romania 2010

Note on the data: The CNP data for the past years exhibits some minor inconsistencies with the data provided by INSSE (Institutul National de Statistica). However, the trends overall are still consistent and under the current conditions good indicators. The overall conclusions for the economy of Romania in 2010 can be summed up with that times remain though.

Table: The Ecconomy of Romania 2010, Current Estimates

Source: CNP (Comisia Nationala de Prognoza)

This having said, we can enjoy a look on unemployment rates and conclude that unemployment had been in a sharp decline after 2002 until the outbreak of the financial crisis. More than that, after 2005 the Romanian labor market, at least for skilled labor in economic centers, was far from being crowded but characterized by a surging demand for labor supply and sharp competition for labor among enterprises. In some economic centers such as Bucharest one might even be tempted to speak of full employment.

However, beginning with early 2009 crisis set an abrupt end to the decline in unemployment rates and reversed the trend completely. The yearly average of unemployment in Romania raised to 8.4 % as estimated by the CNP (or 6.6 % as reported by INSSE, vs 3.7 the year before, Figure 1) while a full recovery will not happen according to the forecasts in the next years (table below).

Romania: Unemployment Rate, Occupied Persons – Forecasts 2008 – 2014

Source: CNP, 2009

A current forecast by the CNP sees Inflation in Romania for the next years as follows:

Table: Inflation Rate – Forecast 2008 – 2014

Source: CNP, 2009

It remains to be seen if these figures will be met. In the past Romania rather used to fail inflation targets.

Romania: Inflation – Data Series and Comparison

The following tables rely on Eurostats data. For benchmarking purposes we provide also EU-Data, as well as inflation figures for the Netherlands, our reference economy for Romania (as it is about the same population size) and Poland as a representative member for other Eastern European economies.

Table: Romania – Inflation Index 2000 – 2009 (HCPI)

Source: Eurostats, Base year = 2005, an * denotes estimates

The index data above shows well enough, that Romania is still well below all comparison levels when it comes to inflation in the EU. Nonetheless, we can also observe that inflation decelerated and left the years of double digit inflation rates behind.

Table: Romania – Inflation Rate 2000 – 2009 (HCPI)

Source: Eurostats; Base year = 2005, an * denotes estimates

Inflation rates for Romania and our reference economies as measured by the Harmonized Consumer Price Index (HCPI) and its annual change rates. Though Romania made considerable progress in this regard there is still a long way to go until European (even Eastern European) standards can be met.

Charts: Salaries and Income from Labor in Romania

Real wages in Romania followed largely the evolution of the Romanian GDP and exhibited since the nineties a w-shaped development path. After a sharp fall all during the 1990ies, interrupted just for a short period of artificial recovery, real wages began rising after 2000 when Romania overcame the recession of transition and enjoyed high GDP growth rates. Only in 2006 the Romanian real wage reached the starting level of 1990 (Figure 1).

Faster rising have been nominal gross and net salaries in Romania and reached some 457 EUR (gross), respectively 350 EUR (net) in 2008 after some years of double digit growth. These times seem to have come to an end after the outbreak of the crisis. Growth rates of the average salary in Romania have been modest during 2009 and are likely to remain modest, not even making up for inflation and the loss in purchasing power due to the deprecation of the Romanian currency. Faster rising are by the way labor costs, as an employee will receive some 75% of the gross salary, yet an enterprise will actually 1.81 as much the sum of the gross salary due to high payroll taxes in Romania.

However, only a small part of labor force actually earned the average salary, which is considerably risen by a small percentage of top earners (Figure 3).

Table: Romania – Average Gross and Net Salary Data and their Growth

The data represents the current estimates of the CNP (Comisia Nationala de Prognoza), Romania.

After being hit by the financial crisis in early 2009 (the crisis arrived with some delay in Romania, yet the harder) Romania’s GDP dropped back below the level of 2007 and there are no signs for a quick recovery. An estimate by the CNP expects the GDP of Romania to reach the former level of 2008 between 2011 and 2012, which is pretty much in line with current GDP forecasts from Eurostat.

Main contributors to GDP growth in Romania have been exports and internal demand, broadly financed by external debt. FDI contributed further and altered the GDP structure and composition. All three factors turned negative during 2009 and lead to a negative growth rate of the Romanian GDP by some 7.7%. Forecasts expect for 2010 a growth between 0.5% (CNP, IMF) and 1.9% (ING Bank).

The GDP structure of Romania has been characterized by a large share of the agricultural sector, a somewhat larger share of the industrial sector and a booming construction sector. The services sector has been fast growing, yet did not reach to the full extent the GDP shared of a western economy. During 2009 the construction sector was the first to freeze, while the others recorded severe drops, also. Read more on the structure of the Romanian GDP.

Charts and Tables: The GDP of Romania

The charts and tables below give not only the raw data for Romania, but introduce for comparison and reference purposes data for the EU 15, EU 27 and the Netherlands. The latter have been chosen as they are the own EU-country having comparable country size (when it comes to the number of inhabitants) and thus can serve as a benchmark for a healthy and modern economy of this size.

Charts: The GDP of Romania

Table: Romania – GDP at Market Prices Mio EUR

Source: Eurostat, an * denotes estimates

Table: Romania – GDP per Capita, Market Prices

Source: Eurostat, an * denotes estimates

Table: Romania – GDP per capita at PPS (Purchasing Power Parity)

Source: Eurostat, an * denotes estimates

Table: Romania – GDP as percentage of EU 27 GDP

Source: Eurostat, an * denotes estimates

His style is obviously most close to impressionism. For Romania, Nicolae Grigorescu is one of the most important founders of modern art in Romania. In 1990 a Metrou Station in Bucharest was renamed to Nicolae Grigorescu.

See the gallery below for some of his paintings…

Gallery with Paintings by Nicolae Grigorescu

Note: The pictures are public domain