New road tax

The traditional bustle during holidays might go beyond hypermarkets, supermarkets, malls and home appliance stores this year, reaching postal offices, Petrom filling stations and the regional sections of the National Highway and National Road Company of Romania (CNADNR). These are the places where the annual public road use levy, mandatory as of January 1, 2005 will be possible to pay. Since this was hardly publicised thus far and a great deal of the Petrom employees have no clue as to what this is all about, it can only be expected that the over 3.3 million car owners would crowd at the postal offices at the last minute. “Most people haven’t even found out about this as publicity on the issue has been almost non-existent,” says Marius Carp, the executive director of the Association of Automotive Manufacturers and Importers of Romania (APIA). The CNADNR representatives, however, say there is no reason for long lines of people to form because “there are enough points of sale.” Besides post offices, this levy can be paid at any Petrom filling station or at the regional offices of the CNADNR, Doru Calinescu, deputy general manager of the CNADNR, said. ZF