Ministry of Environment launching a new selection of projects în the field of nature

Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MMDD) launches the second selection session for projects in the field of nature protection, to provide non refundable financial assistance in the Sectoral Operational Program „Environment”, namely Priority Axis 4 – „Implementation of Appropriate Management Systems for Protection of the Nature”.

The projects should be developed in line with the objectives and strategy for financing related priority axis 4 – „Implementation of Appropriate Management Systems for Protection of Nature” of the POS Environment.

The requests for funding (the application form) and the Applicant’s Guide is available on the website of MMDD (www.mmediu.ro). The Applicant Guide contains details about the conditions of access the funding system and the instructions for completion and submission of funding requests.

According to a bill that is to be introduced within the Romanian Parliament, starting with next year the employees might receive vouchers for holiday from the employer. The maximum annual value that might be granted will represent the equivalent of six minimum gross wages per economy.

In accordance with the agreement between the Government, the syndicates and the associations of employers, beginning with the 1st of January 2009, the minimum gross wage granted will be 600 RON, therefore the employer might receive at the most 3600 RON per year for the holidays.

In this way, the law allows to the employer to offer a supplementary benefit to the employees, under the form of a payment for the holiday, out of which the state will return the taxes. The condition for the employer to benefit of this facility is that the company registers profit.

Big corporates are often seen as distant and less caring than small family-businesses and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). An employee may never even meet the Managing Director of the company let alone to be directly motivated by him. The challenge for a bigger organisation then seems to be in communicating the company vision – “raison d’être”, and values from the top-management to all levels of employees, create trust, inspire and motivate all employees to work for the common goal.

A recent study exploring employee perceptions of organisational trustworthiness across Europe¹ indicates that organisations, big or small, are not doing this job very well…Employee trust in organisations seems to be alarmingly low when only 42% of employees believe that their organisation can be trusted, as the study shows. The study was conducted by training and coaching company Krauthammer on behalf of a specialist team representing seven European universities².

Every recruitment process, whether handled internally or through a recruitment agency, starts with a good definition of the ideal candidate profile. If we are talking about a middle or top management position, inevitably the ideal profile will contain the following expressions: “leadership abilities”, “vision” and “business understanding”, “thinking out-of-the-box”, “inspiring people”, “reflects the values and the culture of the company”, etc.

The expectations that the new manager has to fulfill are also clearly stated: team development, process optimization, meeting sales targets or other business objectives.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, beginning with 2009 the Fiscal Code will suffer several changes:

VAT

The persons that are not registered for VAT purpose (especially the natural persons) and who buy new intra community means of transport will not be obliged to pay VAT in Romania for these acquisitions before the enrolling of the new means of transport, those enrolling in Romania not being possible without this proof.

Until now, VAT was paid till the 25th of the month following the intra community acquisition and the proof of the payment was not requested at the enrolling.

Excices

The legal entities that commercialize, in retail, system energetic power products for which excises should be paid, for example all types of fuels, are obliged to be registered at the Territorial Fiscal Authority.

Starting this Monday the President of Romania, Mr. Traian Basescu, promulgated the Law regarding updates of the first paragraph of article 134 from Law no 53/2003 – Labour Code.

Employees will benefit of 3 additional days of leave (excepting those already stipulated). These days will be: first and second day after the Whitsun (the Whitsun is celebrated on Sunday, 50 days after Easter) and the 15th of August, when is celebrated the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.

Few of us truly understand what the importance of working in a team is. How can we be efficient working in a team and why working together? One of the apparently insignificant aspects would be the need to have a strong motivation from each team member in order to wish and determine to involve itself and to work within a team.

A strong motivation for some people would be either a higher wage or a raise. Each of us has different motivations but for co-working in a team there must be a final purpose, a common gain, even though individual motivations are different.

Jordan Sheppard has recently taken part in the renowned International Language Recruitment Fair, in London. The event is known as the biggest and also the most exciting event of its kind and brought together numerous top companies and over 10 000 multilingual professionals. Jordan Sheppard was present at this event trying to identify talented headhunters for its growing international team. Jordan Sheppard is an elite company in the field of human resources services, mainly executive search, who also operates in Romania, through the office opened in Bucharest in November 2007.

Why “Bermuda Triangle”? Due to the fact the entire recruitment process is based mainly on working with people. And knowing that we, as human nature, are so unpredictable, here is how a sinuous relation has been created among: candidate – recruiter – client. Since I have been working in this area have heard, seen and lived all kind of both pleasant and less pleasant experiences.

Unfortunately, at the present time many of us realize in a small percentage or at all what our roles in this equation are. From my own experience I can tell you that the recruiter has the toughest role. This one is the “lever” between candidate and employer. Depending on its successes or failures this one could be either congratulated or insulted. This one is responsible for everything that is going on during the entire recruitment process as well as afterwards, during follow-up phase. This one is responsible when a client or candidate is unsatisfied by the choice they made.

The annual inflation rate, targeted by the National Bank increased in July this year to a peak of the last three years, 9.04%, compared with 8.61% in June and 8.46% in May. At the beginning of August the National Bank of Romania also increased the inflation forecast for the end of 2008, from 6% to 6.6%. Initially the proposed target of the National Bank for the inflation in 2008 was 3.8% plus or minus one percentage.

At the entire economical level, the rhythm of growth of the work productivity exceeded for the first time in 2007 that of the income (22.6%), as shown in the information provided this month by the National Institute of Statistics.

The NIS‘ data points out that between 2002 and 2006, the work productivity increased faster than the wages, related to the levels registered in the last years.

The hourly cost of the labor increased during the last semester of 2007 with 8,18% in comparison to the previous semester, the most significant increases in price being registered in the health area and social assistance, with over 24,5%, as well as in civil engineering, with 12,5%, as announced by the National Institute of Statistics. A slight reduction of 1.13% was registered only in the extractive industry area.

In comparison to the same period of the year 2006, the most important annual increases of the semestrial index of the hourly labor cost are observed in civil engineering (27,59%), in the extractive industry (27,09%) and in transport, depositing and communication departments (24,01%). The most insignificant increase was recorded in Public administration (7.86%), followed by Education (11.15%).

In accordance with the estimations of the members of the Financial Banking Analysts Association from Romania (AAFBR), the country’s economy will raise with almost 6,53% in 2008. They also estimate an appreciation of the national currency at 3.51 lei/euro at the end of 2008.

In keeping with the data furnished by the National Institute of Statistics, Romania’s internal gross product (PIB) increased with 6% in 2007, reaching to 121.3 thousand million euros. Regarding the current banking account deficit, the analysts anticipate a deepening of 14.73% from the internal gross product and that of the budgetary deficit at 2.83% from the PIB.

After many disputes, the Order 92/2008, issued by the Minister of Labor, Family and Social Equity, Paul Pacuraru, who was modifying the application norms of the Law 19/2000 regarding the public pension and social security system was canceled. The cancellation comes through the Order 128/2008, issued by the same Minister and published in the Official Gazette no. 168 from 3rd of March 2008.

The Order 92/2008 was defining the monthly gross income that is subject of taxation, respectively by the inclusion of new categories of employee benefits as subjects of taxation, such as the presents offered to the employees, the use of company car and company phone for personal purposes.

Beginning with the 3rd of March 2008 have been launched the first measures of investment with a strong impact on restructuring agriculture, food industry and rural areas. These measures have conditions similar to those of the SAPARD program, are expected by most of the potential beneficiaries, and have prepared the institutional and legislative framework of implementation.

Practically, the companies who are active in agriculture and other eligible applicants can already deliver projects to be approved for the three active measures regarding investments in agriculture: in the farms, processing units and development of rural infrastructure.

Together with the approval of the National Program for Rural Development, Romania will receive from the European Union an initial advance of 3.5% of the total value allocated of about 8 billion euros, to start the first actions of financing.

About Romania: