PM Victor Ponta
I would like to appreciate particularly the way in which, in a one year time since he took over the EBRD chairmanship, the relations between this international institution and Romania evolved in a positive direction.
In very concrete terms, Romania is currently the third country regarding investments made by EBRD- the volume of investments. EBRD was and remains an important partner for Romania in terms of structural reforms and development projects and I want to remind the fact that the total portfolio awarded to Romania so far amounts to 6 billions EUR. To give you a single example, the most important project we conduct at this moment, is the one related to restructuring and modernization of CFR, and I consider that the only real chance of restructuring and modernization of the company is that to work in close connection with EBRD, to use the loan we received and especially, the expertise on the restructuring of a company of such size. It is a commitment of the Executive I am leading to carry out this project, essential to Romania, in cooperation with EBRD.
I would also like to remind the important support of EBRD in other areas of activity in Romania, and I would start with the EBRD priceless expertise regarding public –private partnerships.
The projects started by Government – I would refer only to the one we consider zero priority, Comarnic – Brasov, can have success only if EBRD and EIB expertise and support will be with the Romanian Government.
I also appreciated and we have great need further on of the EBRD support in co-funding projects funded by cohesion and structural funds, in restructuring and privatization of state companies, in the support granted to authorities for local projects and stimulation of credits for SMEs.
I informed Mr. President about the fact that Romania is currently in a stable and predictable situation, that the first data of the beginning of the year are positive, but for this positive trend to be sustainable on long term, we need the EBRD support, expertise and cooperation.
I very much appreciate the presence of Mr. President here, together with important persons from EBRD leadership and I aim obviously that Romania from third place as volume of investments advances in the next period. It is a very ambitious objective but I allow myself to be ambitious in this period.

Suma Chakrabarti:
Thank you very much, Prime Minister. It is very good to be here on my first visit to Romania as President of the EBRD and to start off my visit with a visit with Prime Minister and his team.
Romania has actually made remarkable progress over 20 years, two decades since the fall of Communism and EBRD had quite a strong role in that progress. That is why Romania is the largest portfolio for EBRD, and that is why since 2008 when the financial crisis hit, EBRD has put 2.8 billions EUR into Romania. And Prime Minister, it is good to be ambitious, I think we both think that Romania has great potential to go forward and that is why I think we can achieve a volume of landing this year of about half a billion euros into Romania.
There are good reasons for that confidence, firstly, I think the Government has done a very good job in terms of getting its budget under control, secondly, I think the Government has a very good programme of reform that it wishes to pursue. As part of this, it is very important for Romania to attract more foreign direct investment, and EBRD can help with that. On average, across all ERBD countries, for every euro that we put into a project, we tend to attract 2, 5 euros as well. And the third reason why I have confidence in Romania’s future in the partnership with EBRD, is that the Government is very clear about its priorities. And the Prime Minister mentioned infrastructure, that is clearly a very important priority for Romania, and I am very pleased that we have had a very good discussion about CFR restructuring.
We have also discussed the road sector and the investments in that area too, and I think we can also make an investment in other areas: energy, corporate and financial institutions.
And of course, it is important to help Romania use its EU funds as well as efficiently as possible. I think we can help particularly in the energy efficiency and local infrastructure to help absorb those EU funds. And I was very pleased that Mr. Prime Minister is very committed to asking our involvement in that area. Finally, I should say at the heart of this is really to support Romania to be back on the growth trajectory that it used to be. So, on the first months of this year, there have been the first signs of recovery beginning, and we want to help that recovery. So, one of the first things apart from infrastructure that we are doing is putting more support into small and medium scale enterprises in Romania. So we are very pleased that this morning, we signed an 80 million EUR loan to Banca Comerciala Romana, which will be our lending to small and medium scale enterprises. I also hope in the next few days, we are going to sign an extremely large syndicated loan into the telecom sector. So, I think the future is set fair for Romania as long as the Government keeps pushing on its reform agenda and as long as we can come forward with good projects, working with Romanians here.
So, I am very pleased to be here and my team will follow up with the team on Prime Minister’ side in the coming weeks.
Thank you.