Munchau, who has been working for Financial Times for seventeen years, was ZF Gala’s special guest on November 30. During the gala, the awards for the most valuable companies in Romania, a ranking put together by Ziarul Financiar and boutique investment bank Capital Partners, were presented to the winners.
The five most valuable companies this year were OMV Petrom (EUR3.7 billion) for the sixth year in a row, Hidroelectrica (EUR3.5 billion), Orange Romania (EUR2.86 billion), Romgaz Medias (EUR2.7 billion) and Vodafone Romania (EUR2 billion).
Wolfgang Munchau said during his speech before the over 400 guests at the gala (businesspeople, executives, managers and consultants) that it was important for Romania to keep its goal to join the euro zone but only when its economy was ready for it, considering what happened to Greece and Portugal.
In an interview for Ziarul Financiar given a few hours before the gala, Munchau explained that monetary system independence and existence of strong local banks were important for Romania to be able to overcome these troubled times of the euro zone.
“I think it’s important to have some degree of independence. (…) It would be somewhat risky to be too reliant on Austria or Germany or Italy,” Munchau said.
A recent column of Munchau published in Financial Time’s Monday issue made an impact on the international financial circles, as he said the euro zone only had ten days to be saved from disaster by clear decisions made by politicians.
Munchau said he had been getting five or six requests for interviews from various publications a day since Monday, explaining, “Even though [some say] I was one of the toughest commentators I was still optimistic. Even I would not have expected that we would be in the mess at this point of time that we are in. (…) This is now a crisis of the heart of the euro zone.”
The journalist attended a business lunch with leaders of the Romanian business sector and officials, among which Cristian Popa, deputy governor of the central bank, Stere Farmache, chairman of the Bucharest Stock Exchange and vice-president of Alpha Bank, Doru Lionachescu, managing partner of boutique investment bank Capital Partners, Theodor Alexandrescu, Alico Insurance manager, Claudiu Cercel, deputy general manager of BRD-SocGen, Roxana Socaciu, retail manager at Nissa, a fashion company and Aurora Crusti, Siveco vice-president.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)