Renewable energy ensured last year 42.29 percent of the national production of electricity, the highest share being held by the hydro energy, a report of the National Regulatory Authority for Energy (ANRE) regarding the electricity market in 2016 reveals. Therefore, the hydro energy stood at 29.88 percent of the country's overall electric energy production, the wind energy was 11.07 percent, the photovoltaic energy 1.18 percent, and 0.16 percent was produced of biomass. The hydro energy represented the main source of producing energy on a national level, surpassing coal, that ensured 24.37 percent of the total. Nuclear sources represented 17.9 percent, gas contributed to 15.18 percent of the production and crude oil to 0.26 percent of the total....more »

The share capital of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) will grow to 80.7 million lei after the decision by the Extraordinary General Shareholders Meeting on the merger by absorption with SIBEX, a release on the BVB website reads. "By majority of votes of the shareholders present and represented in the meeting, the merger through absorption is approved between the Bucharest Stock Exchange as absorbing society and SIBEX - Sibiu Stock Exchange, as absorbed society, in accordance with the terms and conditions foreseen within the merger draft dated 24 February 2017," the document says.  ...more »

The board of the Financial Oversight Authority (ASF) has fined NN Pensii pension company 1 percent of its share capital, namely 750,000 lei, for having sent an e-mail to its costumers alleging that public talks had been held about Romania's privately-managed pension plan being nationalised, ASF Deputy Chairman Ion Giurescu said Thursday.  'Following the statements released by NN on April 11 to the fund's contributors, we decided yesterday [Wednesday] to hold a hearing of the NN Fund administration board made up of three people: Marius Popescu, Raluca Tintoiu and Madalina Ecaterina Ducan. Raluca Tintoiu is also the manager of NN Pensii. Only two of the three showed up, as Marius Daniel Popescu was on leave....more »

The Public Finance Ministry is working at a draft act amending the Tax Code, with envisaged measures including the introduction of a 10 percent flat tax from 1 January, the granting of certain tax deductions and the introduction of the fiscally acknowledged household, Finance Minister Viorel Stefan announced.  "Joint teams have been working at the MFP (...) on transposing into a regulatory act the idea to reorganise the way the tax income is administrated, aiming to reintroduce the incomes' globalisation and the global incomes' taxation. This under no circumstances means new taxes, new forms of taxation, we talk about the same flat tax which is today 16 percent and the intention is to make it 10 percent starting with 1 January 2018, and apply it to the globalised incomes, to all incomes regardless their source," Stefan told in a press conference at the Victoria Palace....more »

Under a government resolution, power and heat producers and administrative - territorial units / intracommunity development units that produce electricity from renewable sources have a total of 100.6 million euro worth of state aid allocated for the next 4 years.  The implementation of the state aid scheme is aimed at increasing the use of less common energy sources by growing the share of renewable energy of the total primary energy consumption and cutting carbon emissions by partly replacing fossil fuels (coal and gas), the government said in a release.  The carrying out of these projects is intended to increase the installed biomass, biogas and geothermal power and heat capacity by 60 MW....more »

Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu declared that the switchover to the euro will be possible only after the Romanians' incomes get close to earnings in other European Union member states. "Let's make sure that this monetary convergence is done in parallel with the convergence of incomes. We believe that the switchover to the euro can be done only after the Romanians' incomes get close to earnings in other EU member states," Grindeanu told the meeting of the interministerial Committee on the switchover to the euro, held at the Victoria Palace of Government quoted by Agerpress....more »

The establishment of some public procurement central units could annually generate savings of over 1.8 billion euro to the state budget, which represents 10 pct of all public procurement conducted each year in Romania, is the conclusion of a diagnosis-study on resources' waste in the absence of national coordination, presented by experts of the Institute for Public Policy.  ...more »

Hourly labour costs ranged from 4.4 euros to 42.0 euros across the EU member states in 2016, having been the lowest in Bulgaria and Romania - 4.4 euros and 5.5 euros, respectively - and the highest in Denmark and Belgium - 42.0 euros and 39.2 euros, respectively - according to date released on Thursday by the Eurostat statistics office of the EU.  Developments in hourly labour costs in Romania has been inconsistent, from 1.9 euros in 2014, to 4.2 euros in 2008 and 4.1 euros in 2012, going up to 4.6 euros in 2014, to 4.9 euros in 2015 and to 5.5 euros in 2016. Throughout these years, Romania and Bulgaria kept recording the lowest such costs in the EU....more »

The main amendments brought by EGO will be the elimination of validity period of only 12 months for the green certificates. Basically, these will be valid for the entire period of the support scheme operation, until 2032. The mandatory qu...more »

The liberalization of Romania's domestic gas market will come into effect on April 1, according to the Government's Emergency Ordinance No. 64/2016, as there are no technical arguments for the move to be postponed once again, declares the Energy Ministry in a press release. According to the release, following the parliamentary debate on the gas market liberalization beginning April 1, 2017 as per OUG No. 64/2016, but also following the note of the Lower House Committee on Services and Industries regarding the postponement of the liberalization's coming in force, the Energy Ministry had several discussions with the Government, Parliament and the European Commission....more »