Romania Not Likely To Sell Freight Railway Co CFR Marfa for More than 500 Mln Euro - Media

“The European railway freight market is liberalised, and a railway system is now being constructed on a EU-level, where the operators that count are the ones that have the capacity to transport long distances, and that’s not the case of CFR Marfa,” Gandul (www.gandul.info) quoted Stefan Roseanu, the association’s general secretary, as saying.

Romania's Transport Minister Radu Berceanu said earlier this month the privatization of CFR Marfa is planned for the end of next year and it will bring "a few billion euro" to the state coffers, local media has reported.

“On the other hand, it’s more profitable from an economic point of view if a western European railway company came and operated directly, with its railcars, in Romania. Among other things, it will also get rid of the trade union problems. That’s why I think that the state will not get more than 500 million euro [from the sale],“ Roseanu said.

The company’s director general Mihai Frasinoi told Gandul the company’s strategy to survive the financial crisis is to cut personnel costs by laying off some 50% of its 17,400 employees. CFR Marfa had a loss of 200 million lei ($68 million/47 million euro) on a 500 million lei turnover in the first half of this year, Gandul reported.

CFR Marfa turned to a 169.4 million lei loss last year from a net profit of 4.7 million lei in 2007. Its revenue slid 6.2% to 1.8 billion lei in 2008, data from the country’s Finance Ministry showed.

(1 euro = 4.2309 Romanian lei)