Investments in the Magurele laser could generate EUR 600m annual turnover, PM says

The investment in the laser at Magurele can generate local development, PM Dacian Ciolos said on Friday, arguing that a recent study estimates that the investment could generate an annual turnover of over EUR 600 M.

“A governance concept is needed to include more institutions, for so far people have focused more on the scientific side, on the construction of the facility that is to host the laser, the gamma component (…) Since spring up to now, we realized that we are going to have the laser ready and we cannot capitalize its full potential. That’s why this concept began, it’s in progress now. The idea of today’s meeting is (…) to motivate and get local public authorities involved, as well as the business environment. The investments up there can generate, as the study says, an annual turnover of over EUR 600 M, they could also generate up to 6,000-7,000 jobs, with high added value,” the prime minister told a meeting on ‘Laser Valley-Land of Lights’.

PM Ciolos insisted on the need to link by infrastructure Magurele locality to Bucharest and Henri Coanda International Airport, to better capitalize the laser’s potential.

The European Commission has approved the second phase of the project of high-powered laser at Magurele, project known as Extreme Light Infrastructure ‘Nuclear Physics’ (ELI-NP) the European institution informs. More than EUR 140 million from the European Regional Development Fund is allocated to continue the work started in 2013.

A second phase of the ELI-NP project at Magurele is co-financed through the Operational Programme ‘Competitiveness’ 2014-2020 and requires the completion, by 2018, of the construction works and the purchase and installation of equipment necessary for scientific research, among them a high power laser system and a gamma rays system.

ELI-NP is part of the pan-European research project in the field of high intensity lasers “Extreme Light Infrastructure” (ELI), conducted in Romania, Czech Republic and Hungary.

The laser is expected to be operational in 2017.