Presentation

It has been a while since I’ve had a chance to get to a computer. So here are some updates. On Friday morning, the Commercial Service gave a lecture to graduate students from Texas A&M University. Many of the speakers did not actually prepare a separate presentation but instead told them some of the statistics which they dole out when necessary. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
Romania currently has the smallest average size of farm plots in Europe. This is because most rural Romanians (40% of the population) still engage in subsistance farming.
In order to bring agricultural mechanization up to the standards of the rest of Europe , Romania would have to buy 33,000 tractors each year for the next ten years.
Romania has the largest number of tax collectors in the EU… but the lowest amount of collected taxes. (God knows where this money is going).
When the Iron Curtain fell, one of the former Communist leaders seized power, claiming to be a convert to capitalism. For this reaction few real reforms were instituted until the late 90’s. this explains why you can see more vestiges of the old system here than you can in many former eastern bloc countries.
A company that was hired to build a system of super highways in the country had only built 40 feet after a decade. The Romanian government has trouble remembering to pay them due to the absence any capability for multi-year budgeting in the government.
Romania is currently on a 16% flat tax system. They could not move to a graduated schedule to help resolve the budget problems if they wanted to because they do not have the fiscal infrastructure. (This leads me to ask the question: Why would they want to?).