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Romania has invested 22 billion lei in infrastructure projects in the first eight months of the year, an absolute record for the past 10 years, Sebastian Burduja, secretary of state with the Ministry of Finance (MFP), told on Wednesday a profile conference.
"Economic growth means two things: increasing individual productivity and increasing population. What this Government has strived to do in the short term is to allow the economy to continue to function, to produce, hence the measures of furlough, the measures for employees to return to work and all the investment. In the eight-month budget execution, 22 billion lei were actually spent on infrastructure projects, an absolute record in the last ten years. In other words, facing what is likely the most complicated fiscal-budgetary situation in the last 20 years, but let's say in the last 10 years, the priority of those who are at the helm of the Government has been to invest in infrastructure," Burduja showed.
According to the MFP representative, investments in innovation, education and research are needed to increase productivity, something that can be achieved by interconnecting metropolitan areas.
"In order to have productivity, you have to connect people with opportunities, create interconnected metropolitan areas and link together Romania's economic engines, which are the cities. The big cities in Romania have grown well. Within the EU top 10 cities with the highest growth there are seven cities in Romania. For all those who say that it is not possible, I tell them go to Oradea and you will see a city more beautiful than the cities in Western Europe, or go to Cluj-Napoca or Resita," the secretary of state maintained.
