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Foreign Investors’ Council: Tendency of dropping foreign investments will continue in 2010

The government must adopt immediate measures to attract foreign investments in the condition s in which they are continuously dropping, says Doina Ciomag, executive manager of the Foreign Investors' Council.

Last year direct foreign investments dropped by half compared to 2008, to 5 billion euro. 'This tendency will continue in 2010. Investors will become more cautious,' Doina Ciomag tolf HotNews.ro.

The reasons laying at the base of this reticence are: the financial crisis which hit Romania, problems concerning taxes, the implementation of the law, the lack of measures to attract European funds, difficult procedures in the field of public purchases, etc. At the conference 'Looking to the future: Romania and Europe 2010 strategy', Doina CIomag gave as example the way in which investments are made in Romania. According to her, infrastructure projects should be carried out in 7 years.' On the overall, an execution project of two years is carried out in 88 months and costs can grow to 80% of the initial project value,' she said. The land purchase alone for infrastructure works can last 18 months. Execution delays may last up to 3 years.

According to the executive director of the Council,the government should take measures for the use of European funds. On the average and long term, public-private partnerships should be developed. Even if foreign investments have dropped, Romania continues to have potential in sectors less approached, such as energy. Other fields of activity are IT and communications. Regenerating energy is an example of attractive sector, but laws which do not function are blocking investments. There is also law 220 on the support of energy production from secondary sources. Although the law was approved in 2008, methodological norms have not been elaborated yet, therefore it cannot be applied. Now there are only 13Mw of wind energy, although wind installations with a total capacity of 14,000 Mw can be installed. Centers using secondary sources are as follows : 13 Mw wind energy, 8.08 Mw biomass, 70 Mw micro-hydro.

The representatives of the Ministry of Economy justify this gridlock by the fact that Romania has not received the CE approval for the application of law 220/2008.'I keep hearing that the law is not applied because there are no norms. The fact is we do not have the CE approval because any state aid must be approved by CE. We sent a notification to law 220 in November last. We requested an informal opinion in order to get a quick answer. We have none. Now we must show we do not have an over compensation. The National Authority in the Field of Energy is trying to prove that the number of certificates is not over compensated,' said Alexandru Sandulescu, director in the Ministry of Economy.

Sursa: http://www.actmedia.eu

Tags: foreign energy romania investments council euro

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