Economy
Cluj-Napoca is an important economic centre in Romania. Famous local brands that have become well-known at a national, and to some extent even international level, include: Banca Transilvania, Farmec, Jolidon, and Ursus breweries.
The American online magazine InformationWeek reports that much of the software/IT activity in Romania is taking place in Cluj-Napoca, which is quickly becoming Romania's technopolis. Nokia invested 200 million euros in a mobile telephone factory near Cluj-Napoca; this began production in February 2008 and is due to close in December 2011. It also opened a research centre in the city that was shut down in April 2011. The city houses regional or national headquarters of MOL, Aegon, Perfetti Van Melle, Bechtel, FrieslandCampina, Office Depot, Genpact and New Yorker.
British investment and financial services group Dawnay Day, owner of the Brașov-based commercial centre MacroMall, says it will invest 135 million euros in two real estate projects in Cluj-Napoca. The first project, Atrium, which has started construction on the site of the former Tricotaje Someşul plant located in Cluj-Napoca city centre, will cost 85 million euros.
Cluj-Napoca is also an important regional commercial centre, with many street malls and hypermarkets. Eroilor Avenue and Napoca and Memorandumului streets are the most expensive venues, with a yearly rent price of 720 euro/m², but Regele Ferdinand and "21 Decembrie 1989" avenues also feature high rental costs. There are two large malls: Polus (including a Carrefour hypermarket) and Iulius Mall (including an Auchan hypermarket). Another two are under construction: Atrium and Akademia Center Cluj, an award-winning Nisco Invest retail project. Other large stores include branches of various international hypermarket chains, like Cora or Real.
Among the famous retailers found in the city centre are United Colors of Benetton, Guess, and Paco Rabanne, while shopping centers on the outskirts include stores like Mango, H&M and Zara. Hugo Boss, JLo, Pinko, and Gianfranco Ferre all announced their intent to open stores in Cluj-Napoca by the end of 2008.
In 2008, the city's general budget amounted to 990 million lei, the equivalent of over 266 million Euros (207 million pounds sterling). Over the previous year, the budget increased 19% in 2006, 56% in 2007 and 35% in 2008. In lei, the budgets for 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 are 396,303,743, 472,364,500 739,214,224, and 990,812,338 respectively.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)