Mariana Nica

The new Boeing 737-8 MAX aircraft of the Blue Air company will operate on Friday evening the first passenger flight on the route Bucharest Otopeni - Lisbon, informs the company. "Blue Air marks a double first, its new aircraft being the first Boeing 737-8 MAX aircraft to operate commercial flights in Romania and the first to join the fleet of a Romanian air carrier.

The National Reform and Resilience Plan (PNRR) will be presented to the government this week for a first reading, and the formal decision will hopefully come next week, Minister of European Investments and Projects Cristian Ghinea said today.

The Board of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) decided today to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1.25 pct per annum, the central bank said in a release. The monetary authority also decided to maintain the deposit facility rate at 0.75 pct per annum and the lending facility rate (Lombard) at 1.75 pct per annum.

The National Association of Travel Agencies (ANAT) welcomes Greece's initiative to reopen tourism season as of May 14 and considers that this should be a model for Romania as well.

Romania's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.6 percent this January, and the estimated number of unemployed (aged 15-74) was 474,000, the National Institute of Statistics (INS) announced on Wednesday. The male unemployment rate was by 0.2 percentage points higher than that of female unemployment, 5.7 percent to 5.5 percent, the release said.

Finance Minister Alexandru Nazare met on Thursday with Greg Hands, Minister of State for Trade Policy in UK's Department for International Trade, who is in Bucharest for talks with Romanian state officials and representatives of the Romanian business environment on stepping up economic cooperation and UK - Romania trade relations, the Finance Ministry said in a release.

The Prime Minister Florin Citu transformed the union movement in Romania into a bunch of thieves, the moment he was asked if it is alright for those dues paid by the union members to be automatically taken from the people's bank accounts, declared, on Thursday, the chairman of the National Trade Union Bloc (BNS), Dumitru Costin, during the Congress of the union he represents.

Over 100 varieties of 47 kinds of vegetables, aromatic, medicinal and companion planting herbs will be available free of charge this year to farmers and gardeners in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, with the launch of the IXth edition of the Eco Ruralis Peasant Seed Catalog.

The investments planned for this year, amounting to 61.4 billion lei, represent an all-time high and can act as a catalyst for the relaunch of economic growth, said the representatives of the Foreign Investors Council (FIC), which welcomes the adoption of the budget by Parliament. FIC considers that the budget reflects a balanced vision that favors Romania's economic recovery.

A 4.2-magnitude earthquake occurred on Saturday, near midnight, at 23:13 local time, in the Vrancea seismic area, Buzau County, according to data published by the National Research and Development Institute for Earth Physics (INCDFP). The earthquake occurred at a depth of 126 kilometers, and the intensity in the epicentral area was II Mercalli degrees.