Romania is the only EU member state to increase investments in the first half of 2020, compared with the first half of 2019, Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Thursday, mentioning that moving forward important investments in health infrastructure will be conducted, according to AGERPRES.
"Also, the level of public investment, although we are in an economic crisis generated by the health crisis, is the highest in the last 10 years," Orban told a RoInvest virtual conference.
He announced that important investments in health infrastructure will follow soon.
"It is clear that the ongoing pandemic has put us to the test and highlighted the great needs of the public health system. Both under the multiannual financial year and under the National Recovery and Resilience Program we will allocate sizeable sums of over 4 billion euros for the development of the healthcare infrastructure in order to increase the quality of the healthcare services provided to the public," added Orban.
The prime minister mentioned that from the beginning of his term of office he conveyed that he wants to change the "paradigm, the philosophy of government," in order not to support an economic growth through an artificial increase in demand, consumption or government levers, but through investments, increased competitiveness, innovation, research, creating a business-friendly environment, a private-sector friendly one.
Orban underscored that many of the measures in the National Investment Plan are operational.
"We released on July 1 the national investment plan called Rebuilding Romania, most of the included measures having been transposed into regulations and many of them are operational, from SME Invest to the state aid scheme for large companies, to guarantee for investment or working capital, both under the SME Invest programme and under the aid scheme for large companies. In terms of European funds, we have used levers to reallocate funds as a result of increasing flexibility established by the European Commission; we have relocated significant funds to support various grant programs. We have also used the outsourcing lever to increase the amounts allocated to investment grants," said Orban.
He added that the government is concerned about the very good use of European funds.
"We are concerned about the very good preparation of the use of European funds that will benefit Romania, whether it is the money from the EU budget or the money from the resilience and recovery facility or the money from the Sure programme. We try to prepare very well; for the first time we have allocated money from operational programme large investments to operational programme technical assistance to support beneficiaries, whether ministries, local administrations, companies implementing projects, to prepare their projects for a better absorption of European funds Romania will enjoy moving forward."