Foreign workers in Iasi

Romania follows the development path of other European countries: Spain, Czech Republic, Poland, etc. The market economy has grown, salaries have increased. Even if there are quite big differences compared to the salaries in UK, Netherlands or Norway, for some people in Asia Romanian salaries are getting more and more attractive. Respecting the models already developed in other countries, Romanian companies are bringing in cheaper labor especially from the Asian continent. And, similar to other countries, the first sector that starts using foreign labor are the constructions.

Palas project aims to be one of the biggest real estate projects in Easter Europe. The developers aim to have a team of 2500 people working for the project. Up till now they already hired 600 employees. Out of these, only 500 are Romanians. The remaining 100 are Chinese.

This is not the first real estate project from Iasi where are working foreign people. Inter-Dogan, the company that develops Green Park project, is using Turkish construction workers. Up till now they hired 150 workers from Turkey, and they plan to grow this number up to 300 permanent workers. On the peak periods the company representatives estimated that up to 1000 Turkish workers will be brought to Iasi.

In the first 4 months of 2008 there were 2800 workers from non-EU countries that received work permits for Romania. Out of these, more than half were employed companies from Bucharest (1500). 400 non-EU people started working in Constanta in the first 4 months of 2008, 200 in Bacau and 100 in Galati and Sibiu.

So far most of the foreign people in Romania are hired by construction and textile companies. But I am sure that soon other sectors will follow. Romania becomes an important center in the BPO sector and I am sure that these companies will soon start to look for employees from other countries. Foreign workers might prove to be the salvation for the Romanian agriculture that is highly inefficient now.

General Electric awards scholarships to 3 students from Iasi

Three students from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEAA), the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, have won annual scholarships of one thousand Euros for the next three years from General Electric Foundation in the United States. Carmen-Dumea Roxana, Alexandru Maxim and Cristina Pascaru have been selected along with 13 other students from Romania, in a national competition.

The program is aimed at students in the second year of study in the fields of economics, management, engineering and technology from the Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Al. I. Cuza University in Iasi, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.

40 years since the first Phoenix concert in Iasi

In this week-end Phoenix had a concert in Iasi. This was also a way for the band to celebrate 40 years since they had the first concert in Iasi.

Transsylvania Phoenix or, more commonly, just Phoenix, is one of the most prominent Romanian Rock and Roll bands of the latest decades, and also the first one to take musical inspiration from ancient Romanian folk themes. One of the band members was born in Iasi - Ovidiu Lipan Tandarica.

International Olympiad of Philosophy in Iasi

Record number of participants at the International Olympiad of Philosophy, which takes place in Iasi.
At the 16th edition of the competition there are present 53 pupils and 43 teachers from 23 countries.
The theme of debates and round tables from this edition is: "philosophy, space for a dialogue of cultures" in the context of declaring 2008 as European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.

With events lie this Iasi can reclaim the title of important cultural center in Eastern Europe.

Via hotnews.

Ikea will open a shop in Era Shopping Park Iasi

This is not confirmed yet but if ZF is writing about it, I think there are good chances to become reality soon: Ikea will open a second shop in Romania and the location will be Era Shopping Park in Iasi.

This will be the second IKEA location in Romania after the one in Bucharest which was launched in March last year.

 

My oppinion is that IKEA also considered these 3 reasons when they chose Iasi as the second location after Bucharest:

 

1. The construction industry is growing allover Romania but in Iasi the constructions had the biggest growth last year. And if people are building now, they will soon need furniture also.

 

2. Iasi is maybe the most important retail center in Romania after Bucharest. Iulius Mall is maybe the most known brand in the shopping center's industry in Romania. Era Park will be also one of the biggest retail projects in the country.

 

3. Iasi as a retail center is an important attraction for people in the North-East region. More than Cluj-Napoca or Timisoara for their area, Iasi is attracting people from all the close-by cities. I know people that come from Piatra-Neamt, Suceava or other cities to Iasi to spend their money in the shopping centers from Iasi. Ikea shop will benefit from this and I think that almost 50% of they customers will be from outside Iasi.

Good IT people in Iasi... but bad reporters :(

Last week I heard from a friend that she head from another friend that there is a foreign company that wants to invest in Iasi.

I have a look at the article in Ziua de Iasi and I cannot stop a smile... they say that it's a Dutch company. And I feel good that one more company from my adoptive country decides to invest in Iasi. The happiness is short... I do a google search on the name of the company: Movial. And I found that it's actually a Finnish company: www.movial.fi.

If you do a little research it's easy to see why the reporters from Iasi were confused. The new developers team in Iasi will be a joined venture between Code40 and Movial. Code40 is a Romanian company that is partnering with a Dutch company MaxCode B.V.

The bad part of this story is that the reporters in Iasi are not even running a google search before publishing a story. Don't you feel that bogs tend to be more reliable than old-fashioned newspapers?

The good thing is that we'll have another important IT company in Iasi. And young IT specialists from Iasi will have one more reason to remain in Iasi.