Romania was able to pass the financial crisis without

IMF help
Published in Dosare on 16 April 2010, 20:42
The solutions of economical rebound, for which Boc Government is still groping, are successfully
applied by Poland and were implemented also in interwar capitalist Romania.
SFin has identified even since January 2009 the ways to follow in order not to solicit an active financial
agreement with IMF. Among the variants presented then were the restructuring of State-owned
companies from certain fields, such as energetic and selling share of stock for private domain.
Unfortunately, Romanian rulers, instead to present a new offer of investment to the foreign investors,
preferred to get a loan from international financial institutions…

SFin has identified even since January 2009 the ways to follow in order not to solicit an active financial
agreement with IMF. Among the variants presented then were the restructuring of State-owned
companies from certain fields, such as energetic and selling share of stocks to the private domain.
Unfortunately, Romanian rulers, instead to present a new offer of investment to the foreign investors,
preferred to get a loan from international financial institutions. Yet, this didn’t mean the ideas exemplified
by SFin were not viable, because, although our rulers didn’t take notice on them, these ideas were put in
practice in nowadays Poland and also in capitalist Romania before 1945. Only much later on, more
precisely last week, maybe when they noticed the Polish success, the Ministry of Economy has come with
a plan of selling State shareholdings from OMV Petrom, Transgaz, Transelectrica or Romgaz as a value
of one milliard of euro. But what a pity that weather they will ever move over from intention to a real sale,
the moment when that sums will come it will be when the Polish would already have got ten times more
money than us…
Polish Government led by Donald Tusk chose to finance their budget deficit not by loans from
international financial organism, as Romania did, but on the basis of privatisation. Thus, Warsaw
authorities elaborated last year, a plan of selling the State shareholdings from few of the most important
companies, such as energetic groups Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE), Enea, Tauron and Pak, oil
refinery Grupa Lotos, mining company Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanska, metallurgic producer KGHM Polska
Miedz, bank PKO Polski and few other chemical operations.
It is important to mention that the way of privatisation that Polish opted for was listing of state active
assets on open stock exchange, such as not only the budget or private companies would earn, but also
the local investors, such as private pension’s capital, which manages active assets of over 40 milliards of
euro.

Polish model…

Polish plan began to show results even from the last months of year 2009. PGE, the most important
energetic company, succeeded to gain 1,5 milliards of euro by selling on capital market 15% of the State-
owned shares, the offer being oversubscribed by 7,5 times. In the same time the shares selling of the
most important bank, PKO Bank Polki, where the Govern is the major shareholder, allowed to the Polish
State to get 1,2 milliards of euro on stock exchange. In adding, in January 2010, Poland has sold a 10%
shareholding to KGHM, the second biggest copper producer from Europe, for approximately 720 millions
of dollars.
It can be seen that in contrast to Emil Boc, who always watched that the Politic to rule the Economic, the
same as in communism, Donald Tusk put his trust in market driven-economy. He explained that “the
privatisation is important not only because will bring income of 6-7 milliads of euro in 2010, but also
because the State should have a very low profile in the economy. (…) A bigger competitiveness and an
increasing of savings are possible in an economy ruled as less as possible, and where liberty,
competition and private property are key-values.

... resembles with the Romanian interwar model

We have come to a point where we can see that the “Polish model” is the very image of Romanian
interwar model. If the State keeps on deliberately maintaining the control over few key-companies, it
doesn’t mean to hold on their development. Let’s look over few examples from that time. Societatea
Naţională de Gaz Metan, which included also the producer (Romgaz), the shipper (Transgaz) and also
the methane gas distributors started as a state-owned company, but in 40’s the State was still holding
only 58,6% from shares, the rest was in possession of private capital, thus procuring the necessary
investments for an optimal capacity of production and shipping. The same situation was at “Societatea
de Difuziune Radio-Telefonică din România”, where the State held 60% of the share stock and the
privates 40%. In fact, most of the national society interwar was listed on stock exchange and had private
shareholders, even they were in minority.