Billionaire Dinu Patriciu, the wealthiest Romanian, is further
lashing at the Romanian political class, which he accuses of
“stupidity”, but on which Romania’s exit from this crisis
nevertheless depends.
He once again supports the need to drastically downsize the
budgetary apparatus and is showing politicians easier ways of
bringing money to the budget, other than huge loans from
international financial institutions.
“The nightmare is not over,” said Patriciu during the “After
20 years” show on PRO TV on Sunday. He specified the most urgent
solution the government has to embrace was laying off almost
600,000 public employees.
“The crisis can be over in six months, or years, or we can
suffer for 20 years. In Romania, the crisis will be followed by a
period of slow growth that will depend on the cleverness of the
political class,” specified the businessman who has recently
withdrawn from the business he had built for ten years and that
made him famous: Rompetrol group.
According to Patriciu, the economic crisis will have a jigsaw
form in Romania, with several “W’s”.
“The Finance Ministry lacks money because it does not know how
to get money. Because it is stupid. Money is the outcome of the
cleverness one has in raising it. Poverty is the result of
incompetence or at a social level of a context the poor must be
aided to overcome,” Patriciu also said.
After exiting oil operations, Patriciu initially announced he
would invest the money received from the sale of Rompetrol in four
fields: real estate, IT, renewable power and media.
Nevertheless, the businessman’s most visible acquisition so
far has been People’s Bank of Georgia for which he paid 15 million
dollars. In Romania, Patriciu negotiated the acquisition of the
Anglo-Romanian Bank with Austria’s Erste, but ultimately decided
not to close the deal, as it was a “risky business”.

Subiecte #Dinu Patriciu#Finance Ministry