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The year 2018 is "the best in Romania's history" as regards the increase of the budget revenues, according to the figures displayed on Monday by the Public Finance Ministry (MFP), the prime minister's advisor on economic matters, Darius Valcov, asserted for the private broadcaster Romania TV.
"And, in order to understand the scope of this increase of the revenues I have to tell you that the revenues on 2018 have grown versus 2017 by 43 billion RON. Perhaps this sum doesn't look that big, but it surely is bigger than the difference between the revenues of 2015 and 2012, which reached 40 billion RON. So, technically during all of the [Victor, ed. n.] Ponta's governing the revenues increased by 3 billion less than they increased in this single year. If we talk about the governing of [Emil, ed. n.] Boc, we could see that the growth was 36 billion RON in a four-year period, from 2009 to 2012, and now in one single year we find a growth worth 43 billion RON. (...) It is very important to keep this in mind, practically, the revenues to the consolidated general budget of Romania increased in two years' time as in the nine others. So, during the Boc, Ponta and [Dacian, ed. n.] Ciolos administrations all together, the state revenues increased less than they did in the two years, 2017 and 2018 and I believe it is a remarkable performance we should be proud of, after all, because it is unique in Europe," Darius Valcov said.
When asked what has happened with the additional 43 billion RON, the PM's advisor said: "Part of it covered what the coalition has committed to in its ruling programme".
"And here we talk about visible things, practically, for two years or if you like we could take it separately, one year at a time, the salaries have increased by 51pct in two years, 23pct in 2018 vs 2017, respectively. We have also had a pensions' increase, we saw a huge increase of the investments, if we look into the figures at the Transport Ministry we shall see that as regards the railway rehabilitation (...) as many as 144 kilometers are finalised. It might look small, as number of kilometers, but it represents over 50pct of the total number of kilometers upgraded since the '90s until 2016 by Romania. So, we do have an increase of over 50pct in only two years of upgrading the railway," Valcov stressed.
He added that as regards the road infrastructure the number of motorway kilometers carried out in 2017-2018 is a lot smaller, with only "14pct against 740 kilometers finalised at end-2016."
AGERPRES .
