Romania's central bank to give up tennis venue in exchange for land plots

Romania’s National Bank (BNR) has accepted to give up the BNR Arenas tennis venue in central Bucharest in exchange for several land plots. BNR wants the plots on which it has buildings, but for which it doesn’t have property rights, reports local Profit.ro. Representatives of the central bank, sports ministry and senators met yesterday in the Senate’s economic committee. They agreed to set up a joint working group. The central bank’s board of directors will discuss next week about the re-evaluation of the BNR Arenas tennis venue, BNR deputy governor Eugen Nicolaescu said. The Parliament will approve a law that will establish the legal framework for the compensation procedure. BNR is an independent institution and needs a special law in this regard, according to BNR representatives. The central bank has initially agreed to return the venue to Romania’s Youth and Sports Ministry for EUR 35 million. BNR took over the venue in 1991 for only USD 233,000. The arena, which hosted the BRD Bucharest Open and the Nastase-Tiriac Trophy in recent years, needs refurbishing and can’t be used for international competitions anymore. Ion Tiriac said he was willing to pay two times or even ten times the price asked by BNR to have the arena returned to the state’s property, if the state agreed to build an Olympic swimming pool and an Olympic skating rink on the premises. Govt. could acquire tennis venue in central Bucharest editor@romania-insider.com