NICOLAIE MIHĂIESCU

Nicolaie Mihăiescu, Vice President of RDC, is a man of remarkable moral and professional status – The essence of teaching professionalism, always thinking about “architecture” and balancing thought and action.

Born in Budeşti, Vrancea County on January 5, 1942, Nicolaie Mihăiescu graduated from Academy of Economic Sciences in Bucharest, Faculty of Commerce, in 1964, starting his activity as economist and then senior economist at ICRM Bucharest. He was then Senior Economist and Head of Department at ICE Mercur Bucharest, Commercial Representative at the Economic Agency at the Embassy of Romania in Beijing, China, after which he returned to ICE Mercur and ICRM Bucharest, becoming General Manager of S.C. Comet S.A. (former ICRM Bucharest) at the beginning of the nineties, being also elected President (1992-2001) of Metacom Industrial consumer goods Wholesale Trade Organization (established by Civic Session No. 634/1 November 1991). At the same time, during 1995-2001, he was elected Vice President of the National Employers’ Organization in Home trade.  Permanently concerned with continuous learning, Nicolae Mihăiescu has gone through many training courses in foreign and internal trade (including, for example, those organized by the US Department of Commerce).

Between 1992 and 2008, Nicolaie Mihăiescu was also a member of the Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIR), a member of the CCIR Executive Committee, as well as a member of the College of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Bucharest (CCIMB). He has consistently pleading for a stronger, more representative chamber, more incisive in the dialogue with the government and closer to the aspirations of economic operators (considering the “Chamber” as “one of the few happy happenings of the prolonged transition period that Romanian economy had to bear”).

Nicolaie Mihăiescu also has developed a rich publishing activity. Between 2002 and 2008 he was a member of the Editorial Board of the “Economic Tribune” Magazine, being the author of more than 40 articles. Time has confirmed Nicolae Mihăiescu’s passion for solving trade issues, always communicating a consistent message. In December 2002, for example, in the context of an analysis of the Law on Modification, Completion and Approval of Ordinance 99/2000, it stated that, on the one hand, “the lack of trade regulations generated irreparable damage to the Romanian economy, as well for society in general”, and on the other hand, “in the unregulated and unmonitored trade neither legally nor by the civil society there were created an underground economy which contributed to the emergence of a class of overnight enriched ones, to the savage polarization of society to very rich and very poor and prevented the founding and consolidation of the middle class… Black money produced by trade activities was the main source of financing the acquisitions in the privatization process and the underground placement of such black money led to the weakening of the state budget being known that the huge profits of this kind of commerce have never been taxed.”

Six years after the publication of the European Green Paper (elaborated by the European Commission), Nicolaie Mihăiescu drew the attention – although the document in question was translated operatively into Romanian (through the efforts of the Romanian Distribution Committee and the Information and Economic Documentation Center (CIDE), INCE, Romanian Academy) – to the fact that this document continues to remain little known and it is not invoked in the context of prospects of Romanian trade. One of his papers referred to the Hammurabi Code of Laws (laws and edicts engraved on a massive black diorite block, a monument discovered by archaeologists on Iraqi territory in 1901, and found after restoration at the famous Louvre Museum in Paris), pointing, among other aspects, that they: also contain the first principles of insurance in commercial activities and other economic activities exposed to risks; stipulates principles of compensation for traders for goods lost during the voyage from the supplier, due to natural factors or theft . He also referred to legislation activity saying that when a law is issued it gives the authors a sense of relief: “The authors are pleased to offer a working tool, those to whom it is given are half satisfied, half frustrated, the persons empowered to verify the application of the law are concerned, and the general public remains indifferent until they are in a position to suffer the rigors of that regulation. Rough or not, law is law… Finally, the seventh sin of a law is that it is either not applied or applied in wrongly, sometimes paradoxically even by those who conceived it”…

Nicolae Mihăiescu has not forgotten to approach the big store implants, “which benefited from the inexplicable leniency of the authorities to place units in the city centers, violating basic urban principles that could not even have been proposed in the home countries (admitting the decisive contribution of the large multinational structures to the increase of the degree of civilization in the Romanian trade, but placing that “in antithesis with the consequences to the economy, labor and external balance of payments”). The lack of accurate data on solvable demand and sales in Romanian retail – drew the attention Nicolae Mihăiescu – leads to bizarre conclusions if the turnover in trade is taken into account as it results from the statistical yearbooks and the daily reality. In the summer of 2007, Nicolae Mihăiescu did not neglect the issue of the allocation, absorption and use of the European structural funds (“the most generous source of funds that can help the development not only of SMEs but also of the Romanian economy as a whole” to be a matter of knowing the steps to be taken to access these funds”) as being of prime importance for Romania’s economic development, the funds having to be managed efficiently. He insisted on the best knowledge of the general regulations of the European Union, the Single Market and, of course, those specific to trade.

Founder member (1996) and honorary member (1998) of the Romanian Distribution Committee, Nicolaie Mihăiescu was an active presence since the first National Seminar organized at the Romanian Academy House in Bucharest in October 1996 by the Romanian Distribution Committee (in partnership relation with the Romanian Foreign Trade Center), a seminar on “The distribution of goods in Romania in the context of integration in the European Union” (see the “Adevarul economic” journal, No. 47 (245) / 22-28.XI.1996, the AROMAR’s “Marketing-Management” journal, No. 6 / 1996 and the “Romanian Trade Monitor” No. 6/1996).

At present Nicolaie Mihăiescu is, of course, a member of the Editorial Board of Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine, his articles published in the Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine also enjoying a real success (“Friends or false friends”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc/rdc/v1i2/10.pdf ; “Penalties National Championships”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc/rdc/v2i3/7.pdf ; “What is this?”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc/rdc/v2i3/4.pdf ; “MIC.Ro end of the road?”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc/rdc/v3i1/6.pdf ; “Where to repair my plane …”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc/rdc/v4i1/4.pdf ; “Still I Can Repair My Plane”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc /rdc/v4i2/5.pdf ; “It’s happening in Romania too”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc/rdc/v4i3/4.pdf ; “Consumer Protection. A Point of View”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc/rdc/v5i2/4.pdf ; “I hate statistics”: https://crd-aida.ro/RePEc/rdc/v7i2/5.pdf.