Luciana Căciuleanu became Group Training Manager of Ascent Group

Starting December 2008 Luciana Căciuleanu became Group Training Manager of Ascent Group. From this position Luciana will coordinate the whole training activity of Ascent Group in Romania, Bulgaria, Republic of Moldova and Serbia.

Luciana joined Ascent Group’s team in 2006, holding during the time various positions within the organization, the most recent one being manager of Ascent Group’s office in Bucharest.

Luciana has an University degree in Economics and Public Administration within Ştefan cel Mare University in Suceava, her professional experience including 7 years of activity in various fields, especially company’s reorganization and restructuring processes, human resources, business consulting and training.

Already for many years now I handle negotiations with trade unions. Especially when related to renegotiations of collective labor agreements, but in many cases throughout the year. I had the opportunity to meet many representatives of trade unions and to negotiate with them. And I do not want to hide the fact that very often I felt frustration, because of the total unconstructive attitude of union’s representatives, because the total lack of understanding of economic realities by some of these, but mostly because of a completely wrong understanding of the role that they should play as a Union…

The employer “must” give us! The employer “must” understand us! The employer was mostly for the trade unions the “black man” who should be charged for all our failures, who must solve all our problems, whether he has or not the capacity to do so.

In November 2008 Ascent Group signed in Padova a strategic agreement with Eurointerim Spa. Based on this agreement Ascent Group will represent Eurointerim in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and the Republic of Moldova for the whole typology of services offered by Ascent Group. The same agreement stipulates that Ascent Group recognizes Eurointerim as its exclusive partner for personnel leasing services in all the countries in the region.

The magazine Consulting Review recently launched the new version of the website. Starting with November 2008 you can read most of the articles published in the magazine also on the website, at: www.consultingreview.ro.

Consulting Review was launched at the end of 2007 and in one year has managed to become a referral on the business publication’s market in Romania through the quality of the articles, analysis and opinions published by a wide number of specialists in the consulting fields that are covered by the magazine.

Starting with January 2009 the magazine will be distributed exclusively based on subscription. Details about the way you can subscribe can be found at http://www.consultingreview.ro/abonare.html. Ascent Group invites you to subscribe to Consulting Review in order to benefit in 2009 as well by the advices of the magazine’s consultants.

Cosmin Galu is the managing partner of Ascent Group in Serbia.

Cosmin graduated the Law Faculty within Vasile Goldis University in Arad. His studies also include numerous scholarships and specializations, such as „Political Management” with the „National Democratic Institute” in Washington, USA, „Crisis Management” through the Konrad Adenauer Foundation – Germany, „Conflict Management” with the IRI – International Republican Institute, in the USA.

Since 2002, Cosmin is also a trainer of the National Democratic Institute from USA, for whom he held trainings in Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

Ascent Group Romania has a new financial manager. Liviu Tulcan graduated the Faculty of Mechanics “Traian Vuia” Timişoara and the Faculty of Engineering and Economy within the University Aurel Vlaicu from Arad, with a degree in Finance and Banking.

He’s professional experience includes 10 years of activity in engineering within a Research and Projecting Institute and 10 years of experience in finance and accounting, managing the financial and accounting activity in Romania of some prestigious multinational companies.

The financial and accounting experience of Liviu includes 4 years in accounting management within Contor Zenner, and 6 years of experience in coordination of financial and accounting departments and in controlling for prestigious companies, such as Systronics, Alcoa Romania or Zumtobel Lighting.

Nicolae Enache is the new Client Relationship Manager of OCRA Romania. Nicolae graduated the Faculty of Marketing within the Artifex University Bucharest, respectively a Master program in Communication and Public Relationship within the National School for Political and Administrative Sciences “David Ogilvy” Bucureşti, Faculty of Communication and Public Relationship. Over the last years, Nicolae also graduated various courses on management and quality assurance, both in Romania and abroad.

His professional experience includes 7 years of activity in various fields of activity such as financial, consulting and project management, in a National Health Insurance Company and in prestigious companies such Louis Berger, Unicredit şi Banc Post. Nicolae has a wide experience in organizing and implementing projects and programs, locally and internationally.

Ascent Group continues its expansion plans, by opening a new office in Serbia, in Belgrade. The launching of Ascent Group’s office in Serbia was realized through the association of Ascent Group and Lobby Consult Serbia, association having as result the establishing of Ascent Group Serbia.

The office of Ascent Group in Belgrade will offer customers all types of services the group Ascent is offering, but at the same time aims to become a catalyst to enhance business relations between Serbia and other countries in the region. Last but not least, the Serbia office aims to provide support to all foreign investors who intend to start a business in Serbia.

When this autumn began I wrote an article about “the news of the autumn”. And I was concluding that article saying that certainly it will not be a monotonous autumn, respectively that we will have many news, many challenges and most likely many opportunities well-matched to autumn’s colours.

Here we are, after just two months and this autumn has proven to be more different on economical level than previous ones. Moreover the crisis we have begun to enter has proven to be extreme and on global level, deeply shaking the entire international financial system and keeping to shake the global economy. Unfortunately this is not only an autumn crisis but a deeper one and with long-lasting effects.

Parafiscal taxes in Romania were finally reduced. The last “census”, prepared by the World Bank regarding parafiscalty, put Romania on first place in Europe, with a total of 385 parafiscal laws and 278 parafiscal taxes. The number has reduced to 115 at present, after the exclusion from this segment of charges related to both the public domain, as well as the private. The charges that were reduces include incomes from rents, specifications for tenders, but also charges for PhD’s within public and private universities.

Nevertheless, Romania is still among the countries with an excessive parafiscality, the government announcing other measures for the reduction of these fees.

The summer just passed by, and we all prepare to enter in the autumn.

Autumn always inspires me a few words: plenty, wisdom, fulfillment… Still autumn means the beginning of the school, electoral campaigns, but also the main trends in the economy, those who we will give guidance for the upcoming year.

Therefore, let’s go to review what happened in the end of this summer, but also the main trends revealed by the beginning of the autumn.

Good news comes from the Ministry of Economy, who announce a record of the transitional period, namely: “Romania’s economy grew by 8.6% in the first half of 2008, while the advance of the gross domestic product in the second quarter of the year was almost 9%”.

Starting with September 2008 Reliana Groza became the coordinator of the legal department of Ascent Group in Arad.

Reliana graduated the Law Faculty within the Western University of Timisoara and a Maser program in Civil Law and Civil Procedure within the Law Faculty of “Vasile Goldiş” University from Arad.

Reliana’s professional experience includes 5 years in legal advising, mainly as legal consultant and arbitral assistant, respectively as coordinator of the legal department of the Commerce Chamber form Arad. Reliana’s experience mainly includes information and documentary activities for legal entities, legal consulting for business start-up’s, respectively commercial arbitration for companies having commercial litigations.

In August the Ministry of Labour has launched for public debate the draft of the Government decision which provides the increase of the minimum guaranteed gross wage to 8% from the 1st of October 2008 and 11% from the 1st of January 2009. According to the draft of the resolution, the minimum gross wage guaranteed will be 540 lei per month, between the 1st of October – 31st of December 2008, for a full time working schedule of 170 hours per month, in average, representing a value of 3.176 lei/hour.

Starting with August 2008 the project team of Ascent Group has a new coordinator, Elena Manera.

Elena graduated the National School of Political and Administrative Sciences “David Ogilvy” – The Faculty of Communication and Public Relations, with a degree in Human Resources Management. She is also an Italian language authorized translator by the Ministry of Justice.

Direct foreign investments in Romania increased in the first month of 2008 with 76.4% in comparison to January 2007, totalizing 695 million euros, according to the information published by the Central Bank.

The participations at the capital and the reinvested profit represented 45.2% from the direct foreign investments, while the intra-group loans represented 54.8%.

Direct foreign investments in Romania diminished in 2007 with 22.3%, comprising a total of 7069 thousand million euros, respectively these ones covered the deficit of the balance of payment in proportion of 41.9%.