Florentina Cernat

The hospitality industry is strongly affected by the spread of coronavirus, and companies in this industry are expecting a 50-60% drops in revenues, according to a study by the Hospitality Culture Institute released on Friday. Hotels, transport and travel agencies report massive declines in bookings and cancellations of events. With these, the food service industry is feeling a major impact.

A new investor is needed at the Bucharest Heavy Machine Works Company Doosan IMGB SA to continue operating, as it is unacceptable for the machinery there hauled away for scrap, Minister-designate of Economy, Energy and Business Environment Virgil Popescu said on Thursday at the end of the hearings in the Parliament's select committees.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) will no longer finance projects on fossil fuel energy production, which means that more money will be directed towards green energy investments, and Romania will benefit from this opportunity, Andrew McDowell, vice president of the institution, told on Thursday a conference on the financing of investments, organized by the EIB in Bucharest.

Romania in 2019 was a net electricity importer, given that the imports soared by 74 pct, while the exports dipped by 34 pct, according to data released on Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute (INS). The imports totalled 5.110 TWh, while the exports stood at 3.592 TWh, thus resulting in a 1.518 TWh negative balance.

Repatriating Romania's gold reserve would cost 10-20 times more than the commission paid to the Bank of England for storing it there, said, on Tuesday, the Governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR), Mugur Isarescu, in a press conference. "We will respect the law, the vote of the Parliament.

Romania's national natural gas transmission system (SNT) was in a pre-alert state on Friday morning, according to the indicator that shows the actual volume of gas in the transmission pipelines, according to data posted by Transgaz, the SNT operator.

Romania's Transgaz national natural gas transmission corporation signed on January 28 a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Partnership for the Development of Natural Gas Networks in Eastern Europe (EE-NGP), according to a press statement released on Friday to the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB). The memorandum was signed by all the entities that are members of the project.

Transelectrica reduced its electricity transmission tariffs by 1.96pct as of January 16, 2020, as a result of a cut in the contribution paid to the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) from 2pct to 0.2pct of the business turnover, according to a report submitted on Friday to the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB).

The Regulatory Committee of the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) approved on Monday two orders required for the coupling of Romania's intraday electricity market to the markets of the neighboring countries, ANRE said in a release.

Transgaz has already completed 330 kilometers of the National Gas Transmission System on the Bulgaria-Romania-Hungary-Austria corridor (BRUA) gas pipeline, a strategic project for the Romanian economy, said on Thursday Prime Minister-designate Ludovic Orban, who attended the inauguration of the gas compressor station in Podisor.