PM Dancila: Tax reform, uniform pay law, new pension law, to provide sustainability to pension system

Tax reform, the uniform pay law and the promotion of a new pension law will provide sustainability to the pension system for a long period of time, Prime Minister Viorica Dancila affirmed on Thursday at a meeting with a delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to a press release of the Government sent to AGERPRES.

Premier Viorica Dancila met on Thursday at Victoria Palace with an IMF delegation in the context of the annual assessment regarding economic evolution. The meeting was also attended by Deputy Prime Minister Viorel Stefan and the Public Finance Minister, Eugen Teodorovici.

The Executive specifies that the discussions revolved around the evolutions recorded by Romania's economy in the last year and the development and consolidation of the economic sustainability perspectives.

"The Prime Minister underscored that Romania recorded in 2017 a 7 percent economic growth rate, due mainly to the industry's share and with a substantial contribution from agriculture and the development in IT and research and innovation. The net investments in the economy were by 6.4 percent larger than in 2016, 33.4 percent of the funds being invested in the industry and 25 percent in constructions. Unemployment is at its lowest level in the last 25 years, given that as many as 270,000 new jobs were created last year," reads the release.

According to the quoted source, by transferring the fiscal burden from employer to employee, the number of taxes and spending on workforce was reduced and the measures regarding the wages of the budget staff , with an emphasis on the wage rise in health and education as well as the increase of the minimum gross wage contributes to keeping the highly qualified staff on the labour market.

For 2018, a 6.1 percent economic growth is estimated, with a focus on supporting the investments, especially of those financed from European funds, Dancila specified.