Oil and gas company OMV Petrom will inaugurate its new headquarters, Petrom City, in Straulesti area of Bucharest on Thursday, December 2. The office complex required an investment of EUR 130 million and will host Petrom's 2,500 employees from the Bucharest and Ploiesti headquarters, who are expected to gradually move in until spring next year.

December 1st - the Great Union Day - is Romania's national day, a public holiday, so on the practical side, expect most of public institutions and even private ones to be closed, while traffic in Bucharest to be diverted in certain areas due to the military parade which will be organized in the city.

The Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) plans to introduce Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) on trade on its regulated market, as a result of the development of investment funds which place money in real estate properties. The BVB is yet to announce the calendar of this project.

Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi has argued that a rapid solution has to be found to Libya's debt to Romania and said President Traian Basescu is expecting Libya's President Muammar Gaddafi in Bucharest.

Half of Romania will be covered in snow starting tonight until Thursday, December 2. Meteorologists have issued a yellow code for snow in 19 counties. Most of the counties are in Moldova and in Romania's mountain areas, where snow and glazed frost are expected.

UniCredit Tiriac Bank and Unicef have launched a fidelity card which has a social component, allowing the holder to support Unicef's initiative to create mother-child rooms in Romanian maternity hospitals. UniCredit Tiriac Bank will donate 1 percent of the transactions made with the Unicef cards, along with half of the yearly card fees paid by the card holder.

Romanian President Traian Basescu, Defense Minister Gabriel Oprea and U.S. Ambassador to Romania Mark Gitenstein arrived in Afghanistan Tuesday to meet the Romanian troops deployed in the area.

Investment fund Eastern Eagle, registered in the Cayman Islands, sold a 6 percent share package in stock – exchange listed Romcarbon Buzau (symbol ROCE) for EUR 772,000. The deal, sealed at RON 0.21 per share, valued the company at around EUR 12.9 million- its current market capitalization. The company posted loss in the first nine months of the year.

Codrut Pascu (in picture), the managing partner of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in Romania for the last five years, has been promoted regionally, being in charge of the Turkish and Bulgarian operations as well, apart from the Romanian ones. Pascu, 35, is now member of the company's steering committee in the Central and Eastern Europe.

Romania's public debt exceeded EUR 43 billion at the end of September this year, reaching 36 percent of the country's GDP, according to data from the Ministry of Public Finances.

Companies interested in European funding may apply in the frame of different operational programs like Increase of Economic Competitiveness, Human Resources Development, National Program for Rural Development or the Regional Operational Program. See our recent articles here. We've listed some practical issues applicants should know, as well as some useful contacts for each area of interest.

By its very nature, field reporting to Washington is candid and often raw information. It is preliminary and often incomplete. It is not an expression of policy, nor does it always shape final policy decisions, said the US Embassy to Bucharest in a statement about the information leaks on WikiLeaks.