Electrica

The Electricity Law is being rewritten under a consultancy program, with the help of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the Romanian authorities are in talks with the World Bank for support for upgrading the Natural Gas Law, Secretary of state with the Energy Ministry Niculae Havrilet told a specialist video conference today.

Electricity distribution and transmission operators invested a total of 1.563 billion lei last year, compared to a forecasted value of 1.572 billion lei, which means an achievement of over 99 percent, according to a press release of the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE), sent to AGERPRES on Monday.

Developing local investor community so as to have a much higher participation of the Romanian population in the capital market is the top priority for the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), CEO Adrian Tanase affirmed. "It is very important to have a dialogue with companies and familiarize them with the mechanisms of the capital market so that entrepreneurs fully understand its advantages.

Romania went up on the 3rd position from the 4th position in the Top 500 companies in Central and Eastern Europe - Coface CEE Top 500, with 61 companies, increasing from 56, this development being due to the expansion of consumption, County Manager of Coface Romania Eugen Anicescu told a news conference on Wednesday.

The free-market energy prices for industrial consumers will rise in the next period, but it is very important that consumers don't react emotionally in order to not cause a market slippage, Electrica CEO Corina Popescu told a press conference on Wednesday.

The Romanian capital market needs American corporate investors and their global network to get the liquidity and development necessary to attain the status of emerging market, says Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) CEO Ludwik Sobolewski.

Photo credit: (c) Grigore POPESCU / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

"Enel is confirming that the disposal process for its assets in Romania has been temporarily suspended after reaching the target for debt reduction at the end of 2014," a company representative announced on Thursday.

The Italians with Enel may renounce the sale of their operations in Romania, since they cannot get 1.8 billion euros from this transaction, as they wanted, official sources said on Thursday.

*The Bucharest Police on Friday morning operated some 76 searches - 63 in Romania's capital city and 13 in the counties of Ilfov, Prahova, Dambovita, Teleorman, Giurgiu and Ialomita - in order to dismantle a mob specialized in tax evasion, money laundering and illegal VAT reimbursement, supposed to have created losses of around EUR 68 million.

The small investors in the initial public offering of Romanian power producer Electrica stocks were rushing into selling the shares on Friday, the very first day these have been traded on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, and they have managed gaining profits at 6-7 percent as compared to the price for which they had purchased Electrica shares in the IPO a few days ago.