The Government forwarded to the Official Gazette for publication a decision about identifying 11 so-called "industrial restructuring areas with economic growth potential" in Romania, which are to receive financing from Phare funds in 2001 (the "economic and social consistency" component) and co-financing funds from the state budget.
This Phare 2001 programme component will benefit from about 125 million euros in funding, 100 million euros of which will be non-repayable funds granted by the European Union, while the remaining 25 million will come from the Romanian government.
The 11 areas account for about one third of Romania's population. To the Government, the industrial restructuring areas with economic growth potential are geographical concentrations of localities with companies undergoing difficulties, high unemployment rate and pollution problems, which, however, have economic growth potential.
The "economic and social consistency" component in the Phare programme also has a distinct section destined to back the establishment of new companies, mainly SMEs.
The Development Ministry is hoping that the absorption of the funding in question will be facilitated by incentives granted to the small and medium-sized enterprises to develop their activities.
According to Phare procedures, the projects to be selected from the 11 areas are those concerning public and private sector investments listed as priorities in the National Development Plan and approved by the European Commission: development of SMEs, of local and regional infrastructure, development of social services and tourism.
The Development Ministry cares to mention that the respective areas have nothing to do with the so-called depressed areas whatsoever.
The criteria recommended by the European Commission for identifying and defining the 11 areas are: geographical concentrations with companies undergoing difficulties for various reasons (liquidation, restructuring, privatisation problems), high unemployment rate and serious social problems, environment pollution problems, which, however, have economic growth potential by developing infrastructure and new economic sectors.
The Development Ministry is working on a campaign to inform those interested, as to avoid the situations in the past, when people either did not learn or learnt about these programmes too late, therefore they were unable to take care of the necessary formalities in due time.
Finance minister Mihai Tanasescu admits that Romania has always had a low absorption capacity where EU funds are concerned, but feels that the Management Implementation Units this year will help attracting more funds than in the previous years.
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