Farming Land Deals Worry Government

The keen interest that investors or simple foreigners have taken in Romania's cheap land has prompted Premier Adrian Nastase to remark that peasants are selling their land for nothing. "There are areas where a hectare is sold for 100 EUR or even less," he said. However, the Premier pulled the wrong alarm signal when he indirectly warned farming land owners to stop selling to foreigners. A better way to counteract speculative attempts would be to create a realty market that would reflect the real value of the peasants' land. If factors such as soil fertility, possible debts, proximity to transportation infrastructure and/or proximity to urban environments were considered upon making the sale, the price would probably be much different. However, since Romania does not have an actual realty market because of the authorities' lack of interest, the price of farming land has been decreasing and so land is now very alluring to foreigners who know its worth better than Romanian authorities. "Bursa" had calculated that the territory of Romania could be sold for only 430 billion EUR long before Premier Adrian Nastase said: "foreigners know the real value of the land." The said sum is rather modest by European standards, and this is why foreigners are so tempted to buy land in Romania. A simple calculation would indicate that all of Romania's land could be bought by the world's top 35 richest men, who might as well turn Romania into a huge golf course if they wanted to. In keeping with the new Constitution, foreigners will be able to buy land in Romania directly within a maximum of five years after Romania's accession to The European Union. The average price of a square meter of forest in a mountainous area ranges between seven and 45 EUR, while the same surface in a plain area starts from one-to-two EUR. The average price of farming land is 250 EUR per hectare, while vineries are usually sold for 5,000 EUR per hectare. Based on these data, the value of the entire country is about 430 billion EUR (not including mineral resources, waters or public domains).