The Foreign Investors Summit continued on Wednesday with the conferences dedicated to the Auto and Infrastructure sectors. 

The discussion on Romania’s auto sector started with Viorel Ciocoiu, DPIIS adviser, saying that the industry itself represents an advantage for the country. He added that in the last few years, the automotive industry received over EUR 400 million in state aid.

Romania’s auto industry recorded a turnover of EUR 16,88 billion in 2013, up 26 percent year on year, went on to say Constantin Stroe, president of ACAROM and vice-president of Dacia. Dacia exported 93 percent of its production, while Ford sent all the cars it built in Craiova overseas, according to Stroe. However, the Dacia representative mentioned, it is “inadmissible” that only one out of every 10 cars sold is a new car.

Canada-based electronics manufacturer Celestica, which operates a manufacturing plant in Oradea, western Romania, announced at the summit is looking to increase its portfolio by expanding into the solar energy sector and the automotive industry, according Cristian Gulicska, general manager of the company.

Cristina Pop, head of Industrial Agency, Jones Land LaSalle also mentioned that her company is seeing more and more interest from abroad about Romania’s automotive industry.

Seeing as there are investors gaining interest in developing an car-business in the country, what is the government doing to improve infrastructure, one the main obstacles in the way of investments.

There are around 200 km of motorways under construction at this moment, out of which 55-56 km could be finished by the end of this year, said Renata Bendeac, deputy general manager at CNADNR, during the second conference.

“Romania aims to build 656 kilometers of new motorways by 2030” , Dragos Titea, state secretary, Ministry of Transport, also estimated.

The Transport Master Plan is a topic that came up again and agian during the debates. “On the transport Master Plan ther are road and rail projects with a total value of EUR 35 billion”, said Stefan Roseanu, Market Research Analyst, Club Feroviar.

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