Romania ranks 39th in the top of 100 countries in the world published by US magazine Newsweek. The ranking takes into account education, health, quality of life, economic dynamism, and political environments in 100 countries in the world. Romania came one place behind Bulgaria and also behind most of the Eastern European countries.

The Romanian Finance Ministry is expected to select banks which will manage the sale of EUR 7 billion of Eurobonds by next month, according to market sources quoted by Bloomberg.

The Romanian authorities have answered to the recent espionage accusations and the banishment from Russia of a Romanian diplomat by declaring a Russia diplomat a 'persona non-grata' in exchange.

Romanian state-owned bank EximBank has received the authorization for its insurance company CARE in Romania, which will offer insurance for commercial loans on short term, as well as insurance for guarantees. The company expects a gross subscribed premiums volume of RON 2 million (around EUR 471,000) in the first year of activity.

Automotive distributor and service network Radacini Group, founded by Ali Madadi, has taken the master franchise to operate the pizza delivery Domino's Pizza in Romania, the company has officially announced. The company has opened the first store in the country and plans to expand with more units in Bucharest and beyond in the following years.

15 years ago, Kingsley Nwabia chose art - or, as he likes to say, was chosen by art. More than 200 paintings and a book after, he finds himself in Romania, where he settled in 2005. One hot summer afternoon, Romania Insider has talked to Kingsley- a natural born story teller too- in his Bucharest apartment, surrounded by an ad-hoc exhibition of his paintings.

Romania's GDP could turn negative in real terms in the third quarter of the year due to the public spending cuts and the VAT increase, writes a report issued by BCR. However, the last quarter of the year could bring an improvement, but uncertainties are still high. BCR has kept its economic prognosis to a 3 percent DGP drop for this year.

Construction company Romstrade, owned by Romanian businessman Nelu Iordache, has landed a EUR 1.25 million additional contracts for works on the Bucharest North ring road. The contract was awarded for design and execution works on the segment 1A-DN2 of the north ring road.

Passenger traffic went up by 10 percent on the Otopeni airport in the first six months of the year, while the smaller Baneasa airport saw a traffic increase of only three percent. The two airports together welcomed 3.1 million passengers in the first half of the year. Traffic estimation for the entire year point to 6.7 million passengers.

The Romanian health system has come under scrutiny after several recent events which highlighted its poor state. The state of the local health system is even subject of debate abroad and has made international headlines. The BBC has recently wrote about the Romanian healthcare, saying it is 'on verge of collapse'

Evguenia Stoichkova is the new operations director for Coca-Cola in Romania, Bulgaria, the Republic of Moldova and Albania. She has replaced Dragos Militaru, who has left the company to join UPC.

Two expat investors, Emmanuel Damanakis of Skepsis Advertising and Konstantinos Kapetanopoulos have taken the license to open the first Haagen Dazs Cafes in Romania, according to Romanian daily Ziarul Financiar. The first such store will be opened in Baneasa Shopping City.