Petrom cuts profits to cover losses

SNP Petrom, Romania’s second largest company in terms of turnover, anticipates revenue growth of 12% in ROL for 2004, bringing it to 80,404bn ROL (1.9bn euros), as budgeted. It furthermore expects profit to be slightly higher than in 2003, reaching 3,288bn ROL, compared to 3,198bn ROL last year. The company will use last year’s net profit to cover the losses logged as a result of being brought into conformity with the International Accounting Standards. To this end, approximately 1,134bn ROL (30 million euros) will be used to cover the outstanding losses that were registered following the shift from Romanian accounting standards to IAS, which had not been covered by the profit from the previous financial year. ZFx