What did Dr. Nouriel Roubini reply to me about Romania: “Romania has the potential to attract Foreign Direct Investments”

It was Thursday morning. After the first two days of MIPIM, everyone’s interest was focused on Dr. Nouriel Roubini, the famous economist who was about to speak in the Grand Auditorium of Palais de Festivals.

His speech was very interesting indeed. Instead of a cold monologue, he was having a dialogue with a well known journalist, replying to questions and analyzing countries, problems, economic issues and their impact in the world of properties and investments.

The official speech ended and then it was the time for the press conference. So far Romania and the Balkans were absent from his analyses. I raised my hand and asked him two questions (being lucky that I had a friend of mine close by, who recorded the whole dialogue).

The question about Romania was simple: “You mentioned about many countries, categorizing them accordingly. Where would you categorize Romania?”

Dr. Roubini: Romania has the potential to attract Foreign Direct Investments in the manufacturing segment

His reply was short, but it was enough for me. After having spoken badly for tens of countries, his words were quite positive for Romania. His reply was:

“Romania, like many parts of Central and Eastern Europe during the global economic crisis had significant economic and financial challenges, primary with the excessive budget deficit, current account deficit, overvalued currencies, it was under financial pressure and it needed a serious help from the international community, like Latvia and Hungary and other Central and Eastern European countries that followed an IMF program.

There were slippages in that program and the ability to control of the burden of debts has been a challenge. (…) The International community is supportive for Romania and its efforts in terms of financial support. It is a country that in terms of where it is located, in terms of low labor cost, could be a country which can attract foreign direct investment in manufacturing segment and sustain its own economy. Of course, it has its own fiscal balance to stabilize and that’s a difficult challenge for Romania and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe” *

You can watch the video with Dr. Roubini’s reply about Romania here:

So, after tens of negative arguments and analyses, we finally have the first “official” positive news, coming from someone as famous as DR Roubini.

Tomorrow, Tuesday 15.03.2011:

• Why did I decide to ask DR Roubini this question?
• Why he did not speak more about Romania
• What did he say about Greece?

* There is a strong possibility that I might have mistaken couple of DR Roubini’s words, as the sound was quite bad. If someone identifies a mistake, I will be happy to know and correct it so please send me an email or use the blog’s contact page. But it is sure that the meaning remains the same. I hope that soon MIPIM will also provide to me the official recording as well.