PM Dancila: We want a real strategic partnership with the large companies wanting to invest in Romania

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila on Wednesday stated that the Government wants a real strategic partnership with the large companies wanting to invest in Romania, and that in a short while it will launch the state aid scheme for private investments larger than 10 million euros, for opening of expanding production capacity.

"I want to give a signal that we want to stimulate new major investments in Romania, which is why we will adopt new measures to support this. We want to ensure a positive dynamics of the economy and today we are announcing that in a short while we will launch the state aid scheme for private investments larger than 10 million euros, for opening or expanding production capacity. I won't hide from you the fact that our final target is to attract investments worth more than one billion euros. These investments will create jobs and will contribute to the increase in the budgetary income," Dancila specified at the launch of the 2018 edition of the state aid scheme introduced by Government Resolutions nr. 807, an event organized by the Ministry for Business Environment, Trade and Entrepreneurship at the Parliament Palace.

She also added that the state state aid scheme represents only a part of the package meant for stimulating investments in Romania, while announcing that in the next month there will be set up the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investments and Exports.

"Besides a stable and predictable macro-economic environment, a stimulating fiscal environment and a well-prepared workforce, we are also proposing a new approach in terms of our relation with the strategic investors in the economy. We are going to set up the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investments and Exports, a "one stop shop" type of centre, a high flexibility agency, with dedicated project managers. There will be a body of managers specialized in the strategic sectors, from an economic perspective, for Romania, so as to attract investments," the head of the Executive underscored.

The Prime Minister also specified that the Government's priority for the second quarter of the year is represented by investments.

"We cannot go further with the implementation of the governing programme, if we do not stimulate investments. We promised in our governing programme that 2018 will be a year for investments and so it will be. We want to attract investments with a high added value, to result in the creation of new jobs, better paid. This week there were published the new data showing the value of direct foreign investments for the first three month of 2018. These increased by 21.2 per cent compared with the same period of 2017, which proves that confidence exists in the potential of the Romanian economy and the government, although I still think this is not enough, and we want more than that," Dancila pointed out.

According to the head of the government, investments with a major impact on the economy also mean a high degree of technologization, which means more well-qualified and better paid jobs, with dual education being a sustainable solution for this.

"I know and we understand the needs of the business environment generated by the crisis on the labour market and I believe that dual education represents a sustainable solution. In the 2017-2018 school year, there were 106 dual education classes, through contracts concluded with the employers, with 227 companies involved and 68 school units. We are well aware that by encouraging large investment projects the added value of the exports will grow, the same as the local integration of production processes, and there will be more contracts and jobs for SMEs and, of course, imports will drop," explained Dancila. AGERPRES (RO - author: Sorin Penes, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)