City Hall budgets are increasing the stake in Romania’s local elections to be held on Sunday. The wealthiest City Hall is that of Bucharest, with a budget worth €1.3 billion in 2008.

Bucharest’s budget figure is equal to the total budgets of the nine largest cities in Romania.

According to the latest opinion polls, independent candidate Sorin Oprescu, a former Social Democrat and renowned physician, Liberal Democrat Vasile Blaga, former Interior Minister, Liberal Ludovic Orban, current Transportation Minister and former Deputy Mayor, and Social Democrat Cristian Diaconescu, a former Justice Minister, have the best chances of entering the second round of elections for Bucharest Mayor.

Romania has six cities with some 300,000 inhabitants, but their budgets are not similar. The cities of Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara have some €250 mln in their local budgets, while the budgets of Constanta, Iasi and Galati amount to only €140 mln. City halls in Craiova, Brasov and Ploiesti have budgets of some €120 million each.

One of the main budget revenue sources is the corporate tax, which means cities with highest budgets register increased economic operations, according to the President of Applied Economy Group (GEA), Liviu Voinea, for Business Standard. He said these funds should be used for infrastructure investments.