The Regional Operational Programme (ROP) 2007-2013 had an absorption of 60.89 percent at the end of March, up by 2.31 percentage points compared to the end of the previous month, according to the data published by Ministry of European Funds (MFE) on its website on Tuesday.
Thus, the value of the cost statements submitted to the European Commission (EC) amounted to EUR 2.415 billion, while the value of intermediate payments from EC reached EUR 2.323 billion, namely 58.57 percent.
The total number of submitted projects was 10,070, and their total amount of RON 63.145 billion. 5,174 projects were approved, amounting to RON 22.737 billion and 4,667 contracts (RON 20.543 billion) have already been signed.
The Regional Operational Programme 2007 – 2013 (REGIO) is one of the Romanian operational programmes agreed with the European Union and a very important tool for implementing the national strategy and the regional development policies. It is applicable to all eight development regions of Romania. The overall objective of the ROP consists of supporting and promoting sustainable local development, both economically and socially, in Romania`s regions, by improving the infrastructure conditions and business environment, which support economic growth. This means that the ROP’s aim is to reduce economic and social development disparities between the more developed regions and the less developed ones.
The total budget allocated to the ROP is approximately EUR 4.4 billion in the first 7 years after accession (2007-2013). EU financing represents approximately 84 percent of the ROP budget. The rest comes from national funds, public co-financing (14 percent) and private co-financing (2 percent).