“I would invest in the institutional construction of EU fund distribution and contribute to financial education. I am thinking, for instance, of a financial management institute,” Negritoiu said Monday at ZF LIVE. As for economic prospects, he says he doesn’t agree that Romania is moving in the wrong direction but a lot has yet to be changed.
“I believe we are moving in the right direction, but not enough has been done, we don’t do things in time and in the right way and this is where our efforts should focus,” says the banker, who was also a dignitary in the ’90s.
Because of the drought, this year’s inflation exceeds the expectations of the central bank, which raised its inflation forecast for this year from 3.2% to 5.1%, and from 3% to 3.5% for 2013.
Negritoiu believes the products in the basket of goods used for calculating inflation are too connected to what is happening on international markets and some of them have been significantly affected by what is happening with agriculture, so he believes something should be done about the structure of the basket.
“I don’t think inflation is a problem in Romania, nor is unemployment: I think the daily basket needs to be looked at and see how inflation is calculated,” he says.
14 years ago the net average salary was around EUR97 and this year it has reached EUR342, but Negritoiu says it is not important how many times the salary has increased, but how productivity has evolved.
“The salary went up 3.5 times (in the past 14 years), but it’s a good idea to compare salaries with productivity. I think it has kept up with economic growth quite well, but the comparison needs to be made with productivity.”
Romania’s external debt rose almost ten-fold in the past 14 years, to almost EUR100 billion, i.e. 70% of GDP.
“I don’t agree that Romania is heavily indebted because Romania is in fact faring well in this regard,” the economist also says. He goes on to explain that Romanians are under the impression that the country’s external debt is very significant because before the fall of the communist regime Romania had paid its external debt. But after it did so, the economy was left in dire straits.
As for the 16% flat tax, he believes Romania should manage it as well as it can, rather than try new rates.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)