Dan Voiculescu: Hold off investing until July!

Vicepresident of the Senate, Dan Voiculescu, recently made some optimistic estimates about the duration of the economic crisis which has begun affecting Romania. "I"m banking on the fact that the world financial sector can not afford a lengthy crisis and that the economy of the year 2009 is strong enough to recover in a relatively short time frame. As a conclusion, my personal opinion is "Don"t invest in anything until July", he said. Moreover, Voiculescu is unhappy that neither the president Traian Băsescu, nor the prime Minister Emil Boc held any meetings with representatives of the business environment in order to ask what are the steps the latter feel should be taken to save the economy. "You see them on TV having all kinds of meetings with various professional associations, whereas the latter are no longer relevant when it comes to the needs of business people", Voiculescu said. Besides, the vice-president of the Senate and founder of the Conservative Party, says that the crisis will seriously affect Romania. "We were happy that we were not among the countries affected by the financial and banking crisis, but then, the economic crisis came just like a boomerang, and, unlike some experts, I believe we will be very badly affected", Mr. Voiculescu said.

• Ilie Şerbănescu: "The crisis that began in Romania will end in the countries where the foreign capital which rules Romania originates from"

Economic analyst Ilie Şerbănescu feels that we shouldn"t expect salvation from the Romanian authorities, because they have already lost control over the main pillar of the economy, following the privatizations. "Romania is owned by foreign capital, and our salvation will come after the crisis ends in the countries where this capital is coming from. It"s no wonder that president Băsescu recently met with the Austrian president. Romania"s financial sector is ruled by the Austrian and Greek banks. And the heads of the central banks in those countries have told financial groups to no longer send money to the Balkan area", Mr. Şerbănescu said.

He also claims that Romania would have gone through a crisis anyway this year, because these last years Romanians were spending far beyond their means. "The bad thing is that the bill came due in the context of the international crisis. The problem lies with the consumer spending which is oversized when compared to the domestic production and to what we can afford. Loans, for instance, should be equal to deposits. However deposits only cover 60% of the loans", Mr. Şerbănescu said.

• Ţucunel: Russia should be considered as well

The president of the Braşov Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nicolae Ţucunel, expects European officials will come up with new steps to fight the financial crisis, which would take into account Russia and the former Soviet countries. "Russia has many resources, and we can"t afford to go without them. We have seen that Austria, France, Germany and Italy are entertaining the idea of cooperation, we should try and have a better cooperation with Russia as well", said the head of CCI Braşov. At the same time, he said world economy should find new avenues to pursue. "Why build cars for which there is no more demand, when we could build high speed trains, which could take us to Austria faster than planes", alluding to the fact that one could get faster to Vienna from Bra ov by train then by going from Bra ov to Bucharest, and then flying to Vienna from there.

Mr. Ţucunel also referred to the fact that under the current circumstances Romanian communities should find their own solutions for the crisis and rely on partnerships among their members.