Bucharest Stock Exchange Loses Whole Year's Gains in Wednesday Session

Companies included in the market's blue-chip BET index reached a total market value of RON65 billion at midday, losing RON6 billion since Tuesday's closing.

Brokers, analysts and market participants are looking at crashes that remind of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 but are the consequence of patching up an overly generous state budget for Romania, which is the second-poorest country in the EU.

Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici on Tuesday evening announced new taxes on bank assets, energy and telecom companies, which he intends to use to patch the holes in the 2019 budget.

The government also seeks to cap power and natural gas prices. It also hit private pension administrators, the main institutional investors on the Romanian capital market, by planning to allow contributors to withdraw their retirement money early.

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