Prime Minister Nicolae –Ionel Ciucă attended the Annual General Meeting of the AmCham Romania

Speech by Prime Minister Nicolae -Ionel Ciucă at the Annual General Meeting of the AmCham Romania

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Nicolae-Ionel Ciucă: Your Excellence, Madam Ambassador, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, President of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, dear guests,

I am honored to attend this activity and I am glad that Mr. Simion, president of AmCham keeps his sense of humor while bringing serious arguments at the same time, which is very well. I want to underline the fact that government priorities have not changed since my last visit here, not long time ago, a leadership switch is ensuing at the helm of the government, everything that has taken place so far was based on a program for government that we agreed within the ruling coalition, a joint program. Surely, once president Ciolacu takes over, we will have to ensure the elements of continuity and reach those fine agreements required by economic development as we address this here, at AmCham, and also those related to security, energy security, all those elements about the large geopolitical and geostrategic picture. I attend the AmCham activity, and I think that I could not close the day better than coming here after my official visit to the Republic of Moldova, where I had fruitful meetings, we committed to identifying those lines that both governments are willing to assume and to materialize within the bilateral relationship, at the level of safety and security provision for the Republic of Moldova, and especially at the level of our economic relations, regardless of how much we would honestly help the Republic of Moldova, and how successful we would be in coagulating our efforts, and also the international efforts. Here are perhaps also participants from other countries and I want to thank them all for their essential contribution to the manifestation of worry and sympathy towards the Republic of Moldova, in the face of Russian hybrid challenges. I very much appreciated how at the level of the Government of the Republic of Moldova, and the institutions of the Republic of Moldova, they succeeded to anticipate and manage this challenging and unjustified attitude of Moscow against authorities in Chisinau. We discussed how important is in this context to look at the economic level, as it is the one that ensures the instruments necessary for government, proving before citizens that everything that happens inside the government, has but one direction, namely ensuring prosperity and welfare in the Republic of Moldova, and this can be done through investments, bilateral economic relations with the business sector in Romania and relations with the business sector in the European Union and the United States. I mentioned today, in the press conference in the Republic of Moldova this need to coagulate bilateral relations at the level of the other partners that have potential and can support these efforts. I want to further make mention I agreed with Prime Minister Recean, namely, we both committed to identifying in the next period those opportunities for economic relations that have the potential to develop and be attractive for third parties. Therefore, Mr. Simion, we are oriented there at the level of the Romanian Government, we offer support also to the Republic of Moldova, so that not only the potential and opportunities in Romania are made available to our partners, the American investors, but also those in the Republic of Moldova. We can build that bridge between the two countries, through joint investments or through the complementarity of investments that are being made in one or other country as the potential exists indeed. It is very important to reiterate what I underlined last time: Romania is a country with big investment potential. In an assessment last year, the level of attractiveness for investors in Romania was ranked 16th out of 32 countries.

So, we are a country that also offers predictability. You have here the two leaders of the political parties that form the parliamentary and governmental majority, who pledged to take the necessary measures and ensure the framework of fiscal stability, and we all kept this dialogue open when measures have been taken. You know very well that I declared that the Government is pro-business oriented, it is a Government that wants to attract investments, that support investments.

You spoke earlier about the percentage in GDP, the nominal value of the business that AmCham carries out in Romania, the number of jobs it provides, and, of course, the potential for multiplying them which is ensured horizontally. These are matters of arithmetic that we have considered, and which we continue to consider; we must emphasize that the approach can only be a win-win one because it is necessary that both the investor and us, those who host the respective businesses, have a benefit, that is why we make every effort, making available all the human and material resources, because we want nothing more than to do in such a way that the citizens of our country feel that the efforts that are being made, how the resources of our country are being used are for the benefit of all. If you remember, I said then that our level of ambition is to reach a zero trade deficit balance by 2030, and by 2027 the value of the Gross Domestic Product in Romania should be 500 billion. If we are to refer only to these figures, I think I can sum up my intervention to what I said earlier. There is all the room necessary for these objectives to be fulfilled. We demonstrated last year that it is possible to have economic growth and also deliver growth in nominal terms of the gross domestic product, so that we can demonstrate that we are aligning on the level of work, on the level of ambition of investors. I considered that the presence of entrepreneurs, the presence of investors in Romania is nothing more than a transition to "things can be done". Mr. President Ciolacu spoke a little earlier about the fact that digitalization is to be enacted, and the entire activity of the institutional apparatus, of the administrative apparatus, will become more effective. It is how we have seen the interaction with the entrepreneurial environment, and with the investors and I think it should be regarded so onwards. Once again, considering the conditions created in our country, through the measures, the decisions taken at the level of the Government, and the Parliament, and through the dialogue through which we search together solutions, we are talking with you, and we want to find out your opinion. I am glad that you admitted we talked, each of us defended our arguments, and based on these arguments, we made a decision. We will proceed this way further on. Nothing shall change in this respect. I liked that you anticipate, it is one of the business people's characteristics, to see further. It is worth underlining that the effects and the consequences of the war against Ukraine were regarded at the beginning as an impediment to attracting investment. We had the ability through our political approach and commitment to ensure this stability everyone at the beginning thought was impossible to reach. Now, everyone sees it as the best thing that could happen to us. Through this political stability, we ensured stability for the economy, I consider we further need it.

We have no other chance but to continue to fight for this political stability, and to keep this platform through which we can ensure the economic evolution of our country. There are elements related to PNRR. PNRR - at the moment we would have not reached the point of discussing payment request number 3 if there were not this commitment and our conviction that the PNRR is the instrument by which we can align two important objectives, that of reforms and that of investments. We realized that we should pursue cooperation and economic development. The PNRR, the reforms in the PNRR, the OECD, and the OECD standards have been assumed at the right moment from my point of view and I think it is the line through which our country can hope to join this club of countries that want development, freedom, all the values of the democratic world and maybe, in its turn, once it reaches this club, to continue and have the potential to help more the Republic of Moldova and the other partner countries we are in a relationship with, both within the European Union and within NATO.

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