The Orthodox Church celebrates the Mihail and Gavriil saints on Monday, November 8. It is also the name day of all Romanians named Mihai, Mihaela, Gabriel, Gabriela, Gabi.

*Head of GTC: people come to the mall but don't buy anything. If we don't do something to make them buy, the market will crash – in Ziarul Financiar
*Romanian architect Dorin Stefan will design a 300-meter tower in Taiwan – in Ziarul Financiar
*Only 10,000 farmers in Romania are under 30 – in Ziarul Financiar
*Highway construction will have a new standard price per kilometer: EUR 5-6 million – in Ziarul Financiar
*Romania during the communist period had twice as much foreign tourists than it has today – in Gandul
*Isarescu – VAT will not be changed for a couple of years – in Adevarul

Calendar of events for the period November 8-11 in Bucharest: conferences, business events, workshops, seminars.

The Romanian Central Bank (BNR) governor Mugur Isarescu (in picture) said the value added tax, set at 24 percent, will remain unchanged “at least for a few years”. Isarescu stressed out that the country will face fiscal instability unless the sales tax is kept at the current level, he said in a TV interview on Sunday.

Romania will have to return EUR 41.7 million of EU funds to the European Commission for failure to use the money correctly under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Romania will be charged EUR 41.7 million for weaknesses in the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS-GIS), in the administrative procedure for controls and cross checks and for incorrect calculation of payments and sanctions.

The Romanian Transport Ministry will hold an auction at the end of November to award construction contracts for four highway sectors totaling 270 kilometers.

French group Lafarge, the largest cement producer in the world, posted an 18 percent drop in sales on the Romanian market in the first nine months of this year, according to its quarterly report.

ArcelorMittal Galati, the largest steel producer in Romania, will close for at least two months one of its two blast furnaces still active, according to company representatives quoted by Mediafax newswire. Also, all 9,300 of the company's employees will receive a 20-day mandatory holiday in the next three months.

The Romanian industrial output grew by 10.8 percent in the first nine months of the year, according to data from the Romanian Statistics Institute (INS). The manufacturing industry drove growth with 11.7 percent, compensating for the 7.3 percent drop in the mining industry.

Romanian capital city Bucharest will host a Danube Summit from November 8, an event that is expected to reconfirm in a final declaration the political support for the future EU's Danube Strategy. The event precedes the December summit meeting of the European Council, where the European Commission will unveil a draft action plan for the Danube Strategy, with a final version to be approved by the June 2011 summit meeting of the European Council.

Romanian poet Adrian Paunescu died of cardiac arrest, kidney and liver block this morning at the Floreasca Emergency Hospital, where he had been hospitalized on October 26. Paunescu, 67, started the Flacara literary circle during the communist period, in 1973, which became an influent literary and social movement especially among the youth of the time.

British rehab clinic Castle Craig Hospital, the largest hospital for the treatment of addictions in the UK is currently looking for a Romanian health care operator partners to open a rehab clinic in Romania, Rupert Wolfe Murray, the company's representative for Romania told Romania-Insider.com. “There is no proper rehab facility in Romania,” says Wolfe Murray.