Official Minzatu: Romania has an European funds absorption rate of 32 pct, below EU average

Romania has an European funds absorption rate of 32 per cent, for the 2014-2020 programming period, which is below the European average, Minister of European Funds Roxana Minzatu told a press conference on major infrastructure projects on Wednesday . "The general absorption rate is 32 per cent, which means that the country received almost 10 billion euros from Brussels, in the cohesion and agricultural policy areas. The European average, however, is above us, which means that we still need to work hard to recover the gap," said Minzatu. In what concerns the Large Infrastructure Operational Programme, the second as value at European level, she mentioned that this is the most important programme for Romania, with 11 billion euros allotted in total. "I decided to invest the money in transport, environment, waste management, energy efficiency. Obviously this is far from enough to cover our need for investments, this is only a part of the money, besides the state budget," she continued. For the transport field, Romania has 5 billion euros available under the POIM, axes 1 and 2. There have been 138 projects submitted worth 8.47 billion euros; 76 contracted projects worth 5.37 billion euros; 51 projects under assessment, worth 3.2 billion euros and 11 projects rejected. The contracting rate is 107 per cent and the absorption rate is 27 per cent. AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Cernat, editor: Oana Tilica; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Rodica State)