Romanian PM wants to reduce urban-rural gap by 15% by 2020

Romanian prime minister Viorica Dancila said on Monday that one of the goals of her mandate is to reduce the gap between Romania’s urban and rural areas by at least 15% by 2020. The Government has so far allotted 80% of the state funding for investment projects carried out by local authorities via the National Development Program to communes. Dancila also said that she aims to bring Romania in the first half of the most powerful economies in the European Union so that young people wouldn’t leave the country anymore and those who have left would want to return. She explained that the main three measures targeted to achieve this objective are: investments in infrastructure, increasing the population’s revenues, and the administration reform. The two stages of the National Development Program (PNDL) carried out so far have financed some 10,100 investment objectives with EUR 9.2 billion, according to Dancila. editor@romania-insider.com