RO Govt. to launch investment agency dedicated to foreign investors

Romanian PM Nicolae Ciucă announced that the Government would launch a new agency dedicated to fostering foreign investments. The agency will function as a “central point of communication” for companies interested in investing in Romania and will answer to the prime minister directly.

The prime minister’s announcement was made at an event organized by the Foreign Investors Council, an association of foreign investors established in 1997 with the aim of enabling dialogue between Romanian policymakers and the foreign investment community.

During his speech at the event, Ciucă said that the years marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war close to Romania’s borders have once again proven the importance of cooperation between the executive and the business community. He also recounted the measures that the Government has taken to aid the latter.

“The actions we’ve taken reflected this constant dialogue. We committed to refrain from imposing new taxes or increasing existing ones, and we kept that promise, although it was not an easy thing to do. We promised stability and predictability for investors and we kept our word,” the PM said.

Ciucă highlighted that the Government he leads committed the largest sum of the past 32 years to investments, and that Romania will benefit from over EUR 90 bln in EU funds for development in the coming years. He also said that FDIs in Romania increased by 21% in the first six months of this year, and that the number of firms with foreign capital jumped by 35% relative to last year.

Earlier this week, the Romanian PM polished his business credentials at an event organized by the French Chamber of Commerce in Romania. “I head a pro-business government, open to capitalizing on all opportunities aimed at developing Romanian-French economic relations,” Ciucă said during the event.

This would not be the first local agency meant to encourage foreign investments. A similar body, the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investments (ARIS), was founded in 2002 by the left-wing Năstase Government. ARIS was supposed to provide assistance to foreign investment projects worth over EUR 1 mln. The agency was dismantled in 2009, and its attributes were transferred to what today is the Ministry for Economy, Energy, and Business Environment.

(Photo source: www.gov.ro)