www.business-review.ro Business Review | March 7 - 13, 2011
6 NEWS MEDIA
HEALTHCARE
Lowe PR joins up with GolinHarris
New regional ER hospitals will cost EUR 200-300 mln each – MoH
Courtesy of Lowe PR
Fred Cook, president and CEO of GolinHarris Worldwide
L
owe PR has become affiliated to the international network GolinHarris, the company has announced. Discussions started a year and a half ago and the contract of affiliation was signed at the end of last year. The office, the first that GolinHarris has opened in Eastern Europe, will be led by Hortensia Nastase, managing partner. The local Bucharest division will be coordinated by the firm’s London office. “Opening an office in Bucharest brings us closer to our
clients in the European region,” said Fred Cook, president and CEO of GolinHarris Worldwide. This move is part of the company’s strategy to expand its operations across Europe. “We are very determined to grow the business in the region,” said Matt Neale, co-managing director of GolinHarris Europe. “Becoming affiliated to a strong global network was a development target that we have proposed ever since we founded the agency in 2006. The main benefit of this affiliation is the access of our team to global expertise, from which the clients of our agency will benefit,” said Nastase. GolinHarris Bucharest joins the group led by Veronica Savanciuc, which also comprises five specialized agencies: Lowe (creative), Initiative and Brand Connection (media), HyperActive (digital communication) and MedicOne (healthcare communication). The PR agency now has 17 employees and its portfolio of clients includes Electrolux, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Unilever, Franklin Templeton Investments, Orange, Johnson&Johnson, Schneider Electric Romania, Ferrero, Hasbro, Century 21, La Redoute, Frey Wille, the Romanian Red Cross and the European Commission. ∫ Otilia Haraga
POLL
Romanians remain gloomy, poll finds
S
ome 46 percent of Romanians are satisfied with their lives, only 4 percent believe that their country’s economic situation is good, while 14 percent expect the economy to recover in 2011, according to a Eurobarometer survey published last week, quoted by newswire Mediafax. Ten times more optimistic about their continent than their country, 41 percent of Romanian respondents think the European economic situation is good while 32 percent said the same thing about the world situation. The 46 percent of Romanians who are satisfied with their lives is an improvement on the 36 percent who said the same at the beginning of last year. About 54 percent of urban Romanians and 39 percent of those living in rural areas said they are pleased with their lot. In the EU, 78 percent of respondents described their lives as satisfying, over 30 percentage points higher than the average registered in Romania. In Denmark the level hit 97 percent, and in Sweden and the Netherlands 96 percent. A mere 38 percent of Bulgarians said the same. According to Eurobarometer, in the fall of 2010, 94 percent of Romanians considered the country’s economic situation bad or very bad, compared to 90 percent
at the beginning of last year. About 70 percent of EU citizens said their countries' economic situation was bad. Half of Romanians see rising prices and inflation as their main problems, a third think that the impact of the crisis on the labor market has not yet peaked, while 4 percent expect the job market to worsen in the next 12 months. The majority of Romanians (80 percent) think that the anti-crisis measures taken by the government were ineffective. The survey also revealed that 63 percent of Romanians think the European Union has also been ineffective in fighting the crisis. Almost half of European citizens said the EU’s anti-crisis measures were effective. National governments should be the institutions most capable of taking viable measures against the economic crisis, almost one third of Romanians said, followed by the EU with 27 percent and the G20 states with 12 percent. The survey was conducted on 1,001 Romanians between November 11 and December 1. The national Eurobarometer 74 report was presented by its author, Horia Domnariu, research director with the Center for Market and Opinion Research. The error margin is +/- 3 percent. ∫ Corina Dumitrescu
T
he regional emergency hospitals expected to be built under private-public partnerships will have between 700 and 900 beds and cost EUR 200-300 million each to build, said the health minister, Cseke Attila, quoted by Mediafax. Several requests from private parties looking to build hospitals in Romania have been received, he added. In Bucharest the emergency hospital will be built on the Fundeni platform, next to the hospital church. It will cost over EUR 200 million and will have a 110,986-sqm surface. Authorities estimate that the units will be profitable after two-three years, and the investment will be recovered after five years. Companies interested in such a col-
laboration with the state must have a turnover of at least EUR 5 million and a profit of EUR 500,000 per year. The new hospitals were designed as university centers which will provide emergency medical care, especially in difficult cases. The health minister previously told Mediafax that the ministry planned to build a network of six regional emergency hospitals under PPPs. They will be located in Cluj, Craiova, Iasi, Targu Mures, Timisoara and Bucharest. The entire project is estimated to cost EUR 1.5 billion, and both the financing and the management will be private. “It will be one of the most important investment projects in hospital infrastructure in the last 30 years,” said Attila. ∫ Staff
CONSUMPTION
Consumer expenditure fell 5 percent in 2010
R
omanian household expenditure on consumer goods decreased by 5 percent (in the local currency) in 2010 compared with the previous year, announced GfK Romania. In the first semester, the decline reached 4 percent, but later rose to 6 percent in the second half of 2010, due to the austerity measures, according to the same source. “Trying to adjust to a not at all favorable economic context, consumers reduced the volume of the shopping basket. In 2010, they shopped less often and – at the same time – dropped pampering products,” said Raluca Raschip, consumer goods director at GfK Romania. The worst affected segment was personal care products with a drop of almost 11 percent (in RON). Deodorants (-19 percent), shampoo (-14 percent), and toothpaste and toilet soaps (-12 percent each) reported the most drastic reductions in volume. The beverage segment also slumped in 2010 (-6 percent), with a stronger con-
traction in the second half of the year compared to the same period of the year before (-9 percent as compared to -3 percent in the first six months). Categories that saw sharp falls in volume throughout the year include juice, soda and beer, especially given the decline of consumer households. Basic foods and home care products were the least affected, with dips of 3 and 4 percent respectively. In the food segment, chocolate slabs had a more pronounced decrease (-17%), according to the market research institute In 2010, modern trade attracted 45 percent of household expenditure on consumer goods, 2 percent up on 2009. Both hypermarkets and discounters registered positive growth, each of these formats reporting a one percentage point increase. Supermarkets, on the other hand, lost trade (-8 percent in value compared to 2009), as they were the worst affected by the reduced frequency of shopping trips, says GfK. ∫ Simona Bazavan
TELECOM
Power Net Consulting signs deal with Ministry of Justice
P
ower Net Consulting has signed a four-year contract with the Ministry of Justice. The firm will supply maintenance services for all IT equipment in the ministry, courts of justice and the National Administration of Penitentiaries. In total, it covers approximately 15,000 pieces of equipment, including servers, work stations, laptops and printers, in 250 locations across the country. The value of the contract is RON 18 mil-
lion, according to media reports. “We will have dedicated personnel for this project who will provide on-site checks, support and consultancy. The project will not raise any issues related to difficulty. The only challenge is the large coverage area, due to the client’s high number of institutions and locations,” said Eduard Dimitriev, general manager, Power Net Consulting. ∫ Otilia Haraga