An optimist always sees the glass as half-full, whereas a pessimist only notices the empty half. However, now that the time has come to draw the line and summarise the year that has almost passed, we should simply take a look at the glass and evaluate it accordingly. In brief, perhaps the biggest economic event of the year 2003 was the fact that the economy did exist and it did function. Good or not, functional or not, market or transition, private or state-owned (a matter of perception) – the wheels of economy continued to turn, and some even started changing gears.
Visually, the year 2003 may be best defined by the recently-issued one million ROL bank note.
The bill has a smiling mask on one side and here is where we should put the first ever completed agreement with the International Monetary Fund, an economic growth exceeding 4.5%, soaring consumption, and, as a natural consequence, the best year for retail in terms of investments and consumption. We should also add the liberalised telecommunications market.
The other side of the bank note included the authorities’ failure to obtain the functional market economy status in the European Commission’s 2003 country report, the soaring current account deficit, a slowdown in structural reforms, a relatively slow privatisation in the energy sector and the tourism sector’s poor performance.
The image of Caragiale (famous Romanian comic playwright that used to poke fun at authorities, i.e.) can only go with the postponement of the flat tax for natural persons and the authorities’ neverending fight against corruption.
Nominations for Man of the Year include both astute businessmen and public figures involved in big scandals: Radu Georgescu, CEO of GeCAD, the man who sold Romanian-made technology to the company owned by Bill Gates; Ion Popa, former general manager of SNP (National Oil Company) Petrom – who made headlines with his resignation early this year; Fanel Pavalache, the government advisor accused of having requested bribery, who dragged former Government Secretary General Serban Mihailescu down with him; Industry minister Dan Ioan Popescu who failed to keep several big names (the TNK BP consortium, Conoco Philips and ENI) in the race for the privatisation of SNP Petrom.
This was also the first year that saw a drop in the Romanian banking system profitability, but also the period when the leasing growth pace slowed down. The stock exchange logged honourable growth, even if it failed to live up to expectations, whereas the investment funds preferred to sell their stakes (it is nonetheless true that this paved the way for several strategic investors to make an entry on the Romanian market). The real estate market saw the two biggest transactions ever concluded in Romania, worth more than 50 million dollars.
This was, undoubtedly, the best year for the sales of consumer goods, electronic products, household devices and IT equipment. New stores opened at an increasingly fast pace, new players emerged on the market, whereas the big fish started swallowing the small fish.
dorin.oancea@zf.ro