February 10, 2020 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 10.02.2020, 20:00

GOVERNMENT Romania’s Prime Minister designate Ludovic
Orban has submitted to Parliament a list of the new cabinet’s ministers and the
updated governing programme with a view to launching procedures for their swearing
in. Orban has specified the new cabinet has the same ministers as the one sacked
through a no-confidence motion last week. We recall the motion had been tabled
by the Social Democrats and UDMR in response to the former cabinet’s assuming
responsibility for returning to the two-round voting system in the local election.
The Liberals have announced they are not going to vote for their own executive
hoping this will lead to early election. However, the Social Democrats, who aren’t
in favour of early election, said they are ready for any kind of election. In
the meantime, the Social-Democrats have notified the country’s Constitutional
Court, dissatisfied with Orban’s second nomination as a Prime Minister and are
invoking an institutional conflict between Parliament and the presidency.

HANDBALL Thailand will be Romania’s opponent in the women’s
pre-Olympic handball tournament in Montenegro together with the host country
and Norway, the International Handball Federation has announced. The
tournaments will be held over March 20th and 22nd. The
first two sides in each tournament will qualify for the upcoming Tokyo
Olympics.

MEETING Romania’s Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu on Monday met Rafael
Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the
sidelines of the International Conference on Nuclear Security held under the
presidency of Romania and the Republic of Panama. Aspects related to political
and technical cooperation between Bucharest and IAEA were tackled as well as
topical issues on international agenda with emphasis on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Aurescu mentioned the IAEA designation of the International Institute of
Nuclear Research in Pitesti, southern Romania as an International Centre of
Excellency for Research Reactors. The International Conference on Nuclear
Security is an IAEA major event in the field of nuclear security and takes
place once in three years.

STATISTICS The trade balance deficit deepened in
Romania in 2019, standing at 17.28 billion euros, by 2.16 billion more than in
2018. Exports increased by 1.9% and imports by 4.2%, according to data released
on Monday by the National Statistics Institute. The highest shares in the
structure of exports and imports are represented by automobiles and transport
equipment and other manufactured goods. 6.9% of total exports was represented
by foodstuffs and livestock, while the imports of the same category of goods
stood at 7.8%. According to the Institute, Romania’s exports of raw materials,
non-food products, mineral fuels and lubricants dropped.

(translated by bill)