Prime Minister Nicolae –Ionel Ciucă’s participation in the Investment Forum, organized by the Foreign Investors Council(FIC) in partnership with the Romanian(...)

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Nicolae Ciucă: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, chairman of the Foreign Investors Council, dear representatives of the business milieu. Allow me to start by thanking you for organizing this activity and in particular, for everything you are doing for the Romanian economy to be balanced and make us confident in its big growth potential. The figures already presented by the Foreign Investors Chairman speak a lot about what means the relevance of foreign investment in our country. This activity is a good opportunity to continue our consultations regarding the set of government - business sector joint activities so that we have real data from the economy in order to be able to regulate and properly manage investments. As stated previously, there is only one medicine for an economy facing a crisis: investments.

My presence alongside the most important foreign investors in Romania is practically the reconfirmation of the Romanian Government's openness to foreign investors. In order to overcome, as I said, the difficult context we are going through, we need two key elements: trust in the Romanian economy and the cooperation between the private milieu and the Romanian state. Here are two very important issues. Together we relaunch and develop Romania, together we invest and build. I sent this signal of confidence each time I met the representatives of the business sector, and I also want to outline that this endeavour of us all was somehow rewarded by the ratings of the international financial institutions, Standard &Poor's and Fitch Ratings and last but not least, reflected by the economic figures. In the first two months of this year, we could notice the increase in foreign investment by 10% compared to the same period last year, exceeding the figure of 900 million euros.

Confidence in Romania's economy is based on the unprecedented volume of national and European funds that will be invested in all strategic areas: industry, agriculture, energy, environment, digitalization, but also on governmental development policies.

I think it is very important to underline that at present, political stability offers the guarantee of predictability for the economy, the investment and also the legislative framework necessary for you to perform your activities.

Not long ago, I launched along with the other members of the government, the package of measures "Support for Romania". It may not seem too much, but it is a package that was examined and approved at the level of the coalition, a financial instrument worth 17.3 billion lei, intended for 60% of the business milieu and 40% for social measures, as we really need to protect the vulnerable population. 60 percent of the value of this mix of solutions is intended for public and private investments and for ensuring the stability and economic development of the country. We have already started implementing these measures at the level of the Government.

Last week, we approved the emergency ordinance whereby 1.7 billion lei - funds from the state budget ensure the price difference at building materials, workforce, at everything which means maintaining and continuing the development projects at the level of the infrastructure and construction.

Basically, the support of the public administrations that started these projects and we make sure that they are completed, on the one hand. On the other hand, we keep construction companies alive. It is very important because we are talking about financial packages that we will benefit from in the next period and we need these instruments, these companies, to have the capacity to ensure the development of these projects in very good conditions. They need to maintain their workforce in the country, a workforce that we all know very well how much is needed. The difference is up to 5.2 billion, Minister Boloș is here and we discussed with him and in a very short time we will come up with another emergency ordinance that will complete the regulatory framework, so that this money, 3.5 billion, can be accessed from available European funds and in this way we manage to reduce the pressure on the state budget.

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