Romania is sitting on a bag of money, which can be transformed into concrete projects, taking into account that, this year, a record amount was allocated from the state budget for investments, namely 7pct of Romania's GDP, State Secretary with the Finance Ministry Mihai Calin Precup stated on Tuesday.
"Romania is sitting on a bag of money, it is up to us and the private sector to turn this money into concrete projects - and I'll give you some examples. We're talking about budgetary sources, this year a record amount was allocated from the state budget for investments. We're talking of 7pct of Romania's GDP, somewhere over 100-115 billion RON. We have money from the PNRR [the National Recovery and Resilience Plan], 29 billion EUR, which will be distributed over 5 years for investments," Precup mentioned at the Investors Forum - 2023, organized by Bursa newspaper.
Moreover, he emphasized that Romania has money from international financial institutions which, "more than ever, prove to be partners with the Government of Romania to finance investment projects."
"The big challenge is to draw this money toward the real economy. Another key element mentioned by the minister [Minister of Economy Florin Spataru] is the partnership. I believe the key is to find solutions and open our minds and work more with the private sector, let's be less suspicious when the state enters into a partnership with a private sector. And we must understand that the private sector does not only come with money, but also with the expertise to set up a project, to monitor a project for a long period of time, we are talking about 20-30 years and perhaps, more important than anything, it comes with the ability to bring the international financial institutions to the table."
In his view, the role of the state is to identify large investment priorities, whether we're talking about strategic infrastructure, transport, telecommunications, to come up with a first start-up capital. On the other hand, the role of the private sector is to come with expertise and make sure that the project goes to the end, to take the risks, the state secretary argues, told Agerpres.
"I don't think we have problems of the nature of financial resources. The big challenge I see is to coagulate, both at the government level and at the private sector level, the necessary expertise to unlock these projects. From the point of view of this year, I believe that Romania will perform much better than most of the countries in the European Union and even in the region. This year, Romania's budget was built on an economic growth forecast of 2.8pct, less than what the International Monetary Fund gives us, 3.1pct more than some countries in the region, like Poland 0.7pct economic forecast this year - and more than the European average 0.8pct. Thus, the Romanian economy is already in a positive upward dynamic. I think it is up to us to bring the relevant projects to be financed and to contribute to structural investments for Romania, so that Romania's economic resilience increases, regardless of whether we are talking about better or less good times at international level, meaning crisis or economic growth," the state secretary added.
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