COMPANY NEWS

Millennium Bank clients benefit from top interest rates for three-month RON and EUR deposits. The bank offers 8.75% annual interest rate for three-month RON deposits opened by using Internet Banking service and 8.5% for those made in the branches.

Romania's total car production could reach as many as 520,000 vehicles per year by 2014, according to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Automotive Institute analysis. This would represent a 74.5% increase compared to the production level of the local automotive industry in 2009. Romania would thus be the third fastest growing market in terms of production capacity in Central and Eastern Europe, behind Ukraine (242% increase by 2014) and Russia (235%).

Raiffeisen Bank posted a net profit of EUR 49.98 million for the first half of the year 2010, roughly in line with the profit it registered for the same period a year earlier, namely EUR 52.6 million • Operational profit stood at EUR 83.8 million, compared to EUR 106.2 million EUR in H1 2009 • Provisioning for loan loss impairments dropped to EUR 22.67 million, almost half of the EUR 43.79 million reported for the same period in 2009 • On a year-on-year basis, operational costs decreased by 3.7% in EUR equivalent (RON 4.4%), while staff expenses dropped by EUR 1% (RON 1.7%).

Key messages sent by the central bank governor at the presentation of the quarterly Inflation Report:

The EBRD is increasing the availability of financing to the real economy in Romania with a EUR 20 mn credit line to Millennium Bank Romania for on-lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Operating performance improved by 19.8% in a still difficult economic environment.