Tag Archives: romania

A Shift At The Top & Romania Has Lost Ground The competitiveness of a nation – which judges a country’s ability to create and maintain an environment that helps businesses – is a very significant indicator for development. The ‘World Competitiveness Yearbook‘ – compiled and published annually since 1989 by the IMD business school – is widely acknowledged as the most reputable measures …

If you run a search on Romania’s IT sector you could easily be left with the impression that the country is about to deliver the next Facebook. But while the country’s IT sector is indeed booming, it also has an innovation problem. Romania has more IT engineers per capita than the US, India, China or Russia, and over the past …

Over 20 years to construct, Over 2’000 workers, Over 2’000 meters deep, Over 200 km/h fast   Next week, the world’s longest and deepest traffic tunnel – the Gotthard Base Tunnel through the Alps – will be inaugurated in Switzerland. The tunnel will span a length of 57 km – with a total tunnel system including shafts and passages of over 150 km – and …

In October 2015 in Zurich and yesterday at the Hilton in Bucharest, I attended two conferences about romanian/swiss business and investment relations.  Switzerland is currently the 7th largest foreign investor in Romania, according to Banca Naţională a României with over 2600 registered companies and almost 1 billion EUR in subscribed capital. Among the best known Swiss companies present in Romania …

The discussion about minimum wages or salary increases in Romania is mainly a political issue. From an outside perspective, it’s sometimes hard to understand that in all the talking and complaining about local salaries many issues are brought up the most important and therefore most decisive factor for higher wages is rarely mentioned or misunderstood. This factor is called ‘Labor …

Usually on weekends, I try to switch off from business and look on the brighter things in life. This weekend, some tasty french breakfast delights, a biking tour and a lot of tv-sports (Premier League, Bundesliga, Steaua-Dinamo, the cycling-classic Paris-Roubaix and the two final rounds at the Augusta Masters) was the ‘anti-business’-program. But by force of habit, I nonetheless checked my …

The ‘Doing Business’-report, published annually since 2003 by the World Bank, is examining the state of health of economies. What makes this study noteworthy is the fact, that the diagnostics of countries is for once not based on visible features such as growth or macroeconomic parameters as the public debt but of underlying and embedded characteristics like the regulatory system, …

27 percent..   In May and June this year, Romania’s competitiveness in Europe will most likely be the topic of countless conversations across the country. After all, on May 10th, the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 kicks off at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden. And exactly one month later, on June 10th, the ‘Euro 2016’ opener in the Stade de France between …

The future of Romania is not a question of money – it’s all about transparency, know-how and education! For once, Romania was the leader in a ranking provided by EU’s statistical office ‘Eurostat’ this month. However, it was a questionable merit, since Romania recorded the highest annual increase in hourly labor costs among the EU-states in the 4th quarter of …

“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”  – Elon Musk Spirit Of Success Exactly 10 years ago to the day, shortly before 1 pm on March 21, 2006 in California, then 29-year-old software developer Jack Dorsey tapped out a simple message: “just setting up my twttr”. The message itself is not of importance, but …