The Government will complete the Code of Investments (a document to contain every regulation concerning investments and investors) in the first half next year, instead of the end of this year, as previously scheduled, Constantin Dumitru, head of the Department for Relations with Foreign Investors (DRIS) within the Government, told Mediafax.
“We have tried to gather all the data and complete the Investment Code by the end of this year, but we found we found it impossible, therefore we postponed the deadline for finalising the document for the first semester next year,” Dumitru said.
He specified this document would allow Romanian and foreign businesspeople to get an overall picture of legislation in this field.
The code will be a synthesis of all the regulations on privatisation, investments, SMEs, capital markets, special areas, accounting, public finances and state monopoly.
Approximately three quarters of the total 115 applications requesting support for business projects in Romania registered with DRIS over the past two months come from companies that are actually not serious in their plans or from intermediaries with nothing to offer to the Romanian State, Dumitru says.
He specified that these are not planning on making any major investment in Romania, as all they want to get is Governmental guarantees or benefit from certain financial incentives before transferring their business to another company.
“We are carefully considering all the applications filed with us, looking for serious companies only, which have something to offer to the Romanian economy,” Dumitru said.
DRIS head explained that some of the companies to have come to the Department over the past few weeks were actually serious, such as Africa Israel Investment Ltd. (Israel), which showed interest in partaking in the establishment of a Bucharest-based shopping mall, Kronspamm Holding (Germany), interested in investing in wood industry, Fratti (Italy), planning to develop the Sebes-based factory, Carrefour (France), to expand its network and Combined Energy Companies (USA-Canada), to build a thermal power station in Romania.
Dumitru added that part of the companies to have contacted DRIS over the past few weeks had requested clarification of the property legal regime and complained about certain infringements of the laws on land ownership rights or share capital increase within companies. Mediafax