BNR’s Isarescu: EU funds net contributions’ inflows amounted to EUR 30.4 bn during 2007-2017

Romania got EU funds from the European budget of EUR 45.7 billion, accounting for an average of 2.8 percent/year of GDP in 2007-2017 period, National Bank of Romania (BNR) Governor Mugur Isarescu said Monday in a press conference.

Of this amount, EUR 37.1 billion were funds received from the EU budget for the 2007-2013 multiannual financial framework, the remaining EUR 8.6 billion being received in the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework.

”If we also take into account Romania’s contribution to the European Union budget, the net inflows of European funds were EUR 30.4 billion, or 1.8 percent of GDP on average per year,” BNR official explained, adding: ”We could say with these figures that we should be relatively satisfied. For Romania, the European funds represent not only these figures, but also the chance of modernizing the economy and the country, the chance to create the infrastructure that is so necessary for a sustainable development “.

He said he is convinced that the EU funds absorption should be systematically targeted for major development projects.

Structural and investment funds accounted for an average of about 27 percent of the total public administration investment during 2007-2016.

Mugur Isarescu said that according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates, the cumulative effect of attracting European structural and investment funds to GDP growth for the 2007-2016 period was between 1.2 percentage points and 1.6 percentage points of GDP.

An absorption rate of these funds of 95 percent in the current multiannual financial framework would lead to a potential GDP growth rate of around 1,7 percentage points in 2022 and reach a potential GDP of around 5 percent per year.

BNR Governor also stated that we have to want a sustainable, healthy growth that will not cause the accumulation of risks, imbalances, corrections in the future when imbalances occur.