Romania is among Europe’s best gifted with arable land, water and human resources.
The country aspires to developing and implementing modern policies and rural administration to serve each person, every day, in every region of the country. Progress in agriculture could generally contribute to Romania’s economic growth, to a more sustainable trade balance, for the benefit of all Romanians, World Bank Country Manager Elisabetta Capannelli said, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR) announced in a press release after organizing a conference in Bucharest on Wednesday.
“Joining the European Union brought many benefits to Romania’s agriculture and rural areas. Major progress has been noted lately as regards the agricultural production and the historical transformation of the trade balance into a positive one. Sectoral progress has been significantly supported by greater financing opportunities. Increasingly larger private investments in the agri-food sector have leveraged the effects of public financing, both national and European. The agricultural administration has managed over EUR 14 billion between 2007 and 2013, and will manage EUR 21.5 billion more over 2014-2020,” Romanian Agriculture Minister Daniel Constantin mentioned before the event.
The conference topics included the economic, social and climatic sustainability of the Romanian agriculture and rural development; the knowledge and information systems to promote the country’s agriculture to the front line; the plan of necessary reforms provided by the World Bank to the Ministry of Agriculture, allowing Romania to fully use the financial, economic and commercial benefits of joining the EU a.s.o.
On this occasion, Agriculture Minister asked for political consensus on the rehabilitation of the main irrigation infrastructure; this would allow Romania to earmark budget resources if investments are not obtained under the Juncker Plan of the European Commission or from international financial organizations.
Attending the event, Dacian Ciolos, the former European Commissioner for Agriculture (photo) said that Romania has participated from the beginning in the drafting of the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU, his work over the past five years.
„(…) The moment is vital for Romania, as the implementation of the National Rural Development Plan begins, as well as the new measures for using funds from still consistent budget CAP allocations, [which are] on an uptrend for the coming years, despite the talks on the budget and on the cuts to it. How this allocation is used remains to be seen,” Ciolos stated, emphasizing, in his turn that, Romania should focus in the near future on durability and modernization in agriculture.