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I know that I love Romania. And in the five years since then,
I worked on my own more, went it alone for a while,
looking for, and promoting, those things about Romania
that I believe are truly authentic, real and eternally worthwhile.
On November 26th 2012, I took off on foot, heading out from The Merry Cemetery,
to my final destination, in Bucharest: the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant.
I set out to make this trip while relying solely on the people I'd meet along the way
to give me food and shelter. It took me 26 days to walk the 2650 km,
and that's how it all went: At every pit stop I had to make, I'd receive
everything necessary for me to complete this trip under the best conditions.
It was a show of solidarity.
[Traditional Romanian flute music playing]
That's the story, thank you!
We also want to thank Mr. Grigore Leşe from the heart,
as well as the speakers from the first panel. We'll have a break, for 20 minutes at most.
I'd like us to reassemble in about three minutes, thank you very much.
About this next part, I'd like to let you know
we'll be enjoying a few speeches, quite engaging as well.
We'll be hearing from Mr. Adrian Ciocănea, Secretary of State for the Ministry of Finances;
we'll be hearing from Mr. Laurent Lalagüe, General Manager of Apa Nova;
Mayor Minel Prinea is here with us as well.
Mr. Ciocănea, if you wouldn't mind, you have the floor.
Thank you, and thank the Foundation for having me. Straightforward messages are meant
to come out of this get-together, namely about the representative role
that public institutions -- i.e., in my case, the Ministry of Finances --
should play in relation to investors, be them Romanian or foreign.
At the Ministry of Finances,
we're standing skewed and thinking straight, as a great man used to say,
and we take note of the following: out of 24 relevant industry branches,
multinationals are cornering the market in 17.
Apart from a few standout exceptions, the great majority of these
of these transnational firms aren't competitive in Romania,
however, they are so in their own countries. We aim to lend a hand in this regard,
along two lines of reasoning: what are the structural aspects that
both foreign and Romanian investors want; what kind of an offer should we make,
in order to have them stay and put down the sturdiest possible roots here?
Apart from what was said in this address,
we'd also like to convey this message -- from what we gather, or at least I do,
speaking from my four-year experience at the helm of the Dept. for European Business,
I'd like to say that we need Romania to become a Euro-realist.
Because the European policies are optimistic, whether we can actually fulfill them
is what we need to make sure of.
My outline of how I see our economy is one I, as an economist, personally adhere to,
with my research team concurring. I hope you'll find this exposition engaging
over the next ten minutes, tops, to follow.
So, Economic Growth and Investment --
does any of you know what the projected growth is for this year?
I'm certain you do, I'm looking at Mrs. Paul and I'm sure she would go along with
a 2 percent forecast growth rate -- or she might not go along with it.
But 2% is the official figure, as put forth by the latest statistics,
prognosis rather, in the IMF's World Economic Outlook report.
And when we hear about a projected 2% growth for Romania,
what we're also hearing is that it's the biggest economic growth in the region --
which goes over big with all of us,
the biggest economic growth in the region. We'll see what that means,
what region Romania is measured against, what that means in terms of making up for
how much we're lagging behind the European Union, which I was telling you about earlier.
The question is what good it does us, and where this economic growth might take us,
if it stays at this level of just 2%.
We'll begin with Romania's GDP per capita, 49% of the average value across the EU.
I noted before that personal consumption effectively stands at 48% of the EU average.
The fourth and, naturally, the fifth columns are of interest to us, but mostly the forth,
which shows actual personal consumption per capita.
You'll remember, it's how we compare national prosperity,
by setting it against other nations' welfare.
If we indeed grow as predicted, i.e. more than all the other states in our economic class,
we'll arrive at the dismal conclusion that
we've grown from 48% to 48.96% of the average.
So, then, how could we ever manage to catch up? Through investment.
At the coming edition of the events the Dignitas Foundation is organizing,
we'll be referring to local investment, but foreign investment is what we'll be
talking about today.