EBRD: Export and infrastructure companies are engine of economic growth in Romania
Date: 10-03-2010
This year's engine of Romania's economic growth will be the export companies, which have already started to grow, and the infrastructure companies, Director of the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) Office in Bucharest Claudia Pendred said on Tuesday, during a seminar on the financing of the Turkish companies' businesses that operate on the Romanian market. In Pendred's opinion, export and infrastructure are the sectors that will contribute to the Romanian economy's emerging from the downturn, because they can bring profit and can create jobs.'Over 85 percent of the projects we fund are in the private sector,' the EBRD official said.
Pendred underlined that there are also important projects being developed with the public sector, especially on city infrastructure.
She said the assertions referring to the success of the infrastructure projects in Romania made in Peter Sanfey's paper were understood by the press without taking into consideration the general context. The EBRD co-worked with the IMF and we are waiting for the infrastructure governmental projects to yield results. We believe the IMF did a good job in stabilizing the Romanian economy, she added.
The EBRD supports the development of production and of the agro-food sector through the assistance granted to companies, including to SMEs, it is involved in the energy sector, especially in renewable energy production and in the setting up of wind-power plant parks.
During the discussions with the Turkish investors, Claudia Pendred invited the companies with projects worth over five million euros to address directly to the EBRD for funding, and the ones with projects below this amount should address to banks.
'The Turkish companies that operate in Romania and have projects worth below five million euros may also address to the Romanian banks where EBRD opened funding lines for SMEs, such as Banca Transilvania, BCR (the Romanian Commercial Bank) and BRD (the Romanian Bank for Development), as well as other banking institutions,' said head of Bucharest-based EBRD Office.
