RO FinMNin Caciu meets EIB officials over EUR 500 mln regional hospital in Craiova

Romania's finance minister Adrian Câciu met the vice president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Christian Kettel Thomson, to discuss "how to operationalize as quickly and efficiently as possible the financing contract for the new Regional Hospital in Craiova, worth EUR 368 mln."

The total cost of the project is EUR 509 mln.

The new Regional Emergency Hospital (SRU) in Craiova would be operational in 2028, according to an investment acceleration plan approved by the Ministry of Health in January, seven years after the European Union and the Government of Romania agreed on building three such hospitals in the country.

The Romanian Government signed in early March the memorandum on the EUR 368 mln loan.

"I had the experience of the regional hospitals, for Cluj, Iasi and Craiova, [projects that] I signed in 2015 with the Government of prime minister Victor Ponta. I hoped to inaugurate them - but every minister of health came up with their own project," former European Commissioner Corina Cretu, currently a member of the European Parliament, recently said, quoted by News.ro.

"In 2018, feasibility studies were carried out by the European Investment Bank, but here we are in 2022 and only now are the companies that will work contracted," she explained.

According to the estimated schedule of works, provided in the Financing Agreement, the completion date of the Project for the Craiova Regional Hospital is December 2026, and the deadline for drawing the loan as agreed, including the EIB policy, is six years from the date of signing the financing agreement.

The EUR 368 mln loan is the third after EIB agreed to finance investments in regional emergency hospitals in Iasi and Cluj, through loans totaling EUR 555 mln.

(Photo: Ministerul Finantelor Facebook Page)