The Proprietatea Fund (FP) has ‘more and more chances’ to be listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange this year, is the opinion of Finance Minister Sebastian Vladescu, who nevertheless refuses to name the exact date by which the process should be completed, Mediafax reports. He says the Fund needs to be managed by a SAI that should take care both of its portfolio and of the company as such. In addition, Vladescu says the signing of the agreement with Franklin Templeton Investments is expected to happen sometime after the February 10 General Assembly that will mandate the signing representatives. ‘That is a step forward towards listing’ the finance minister stated.

At the end of January, the Government mandated the representatives of the State to the Proprietatea Fund to empower, at the following AGA, the officials with a right of signing the final management agreement with Franklin Templeton Investments. At that date, the minister was indicating that the shareholders were going to empower the Chairman of the administrator selection board.

Another thing Minister Vladescu mentioned yesterday is that that the trading of the FP stock on the extra-stock exchange system of the Brokers’ Association (ROTC) does not depend on the Ministry of Public Finance. He also added that the decreasing of the State’s participation in the FP had had to do with the way in which the National Agency for Property Restitution (ANRP) functioned and with how fast municipalities issued compensation certificates.

Vladescu also thinks the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) could turn into a financing tool for the Romanian economy, despite the fact that stock exchange investors would not benefit from tax incentives. The BVB posted RON 6.8 M net profit for 2009, 40 per cent smaller than the 2008 figures, according to preliminary data. The market operator’s revenue also decreased by 30 per cent to RON 22 M, while expenditures were down 27.4 per cent.

Penalties for uncultivated farmland

Vladescu is of the opinion that farmland owners who do not work their land should be penalized: ‘I haven’t discussed the taxation of agricultural land with the Ministry of Agriculture, but I am for penalizing owners who do not work the land’.

Over 400,000 owners of over 1.5 M hectares of uncultivated agricultural land may receive penalties starting this spring, Agriculture Ministry Adrian Radulescu in turn said. ‘There are 1.5 – 2 M hectares of uncultivated farmland owned by 4 – 5 M individuals in Romania’ Radulescu said. Uncultivated land stands for about 20 per cent of Romania’s arable area. Only 8.1 M hectares of land are cultivated.