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Gov't approves memorandum on the General Transport Master Plan: investments estimated at 45.45 billion euros
The government on Wednesday passed a memorandum regarding Romania's General Transport Master Plan, a document establishing that the total investments needed will reach up to 45.45 billion euros until 2030 for such road, rail, maritime and air infrastructure projects, Minister of Transportation, Ioan Rus, made the announcement at the Victoria Palace.
"Today, the government approved the General Transport Master Plan of Romania. In short, its main indicators are as following — for road transportation: 1,300 kilometres of motorways, worth 13.7 billion euros; express roads — 925 kilometers, 9.9 billion euros; trans-regional roads — 2,870 kilometers, 1.6 billion euros, and trans-European roads — 343 kilometers, 190 million euros. As far as the rail infrastructure is concerned, rebuilding of 2,800 kilometres of railway and electrification of other 489 kilometers. (...) As for the maritime sector, 3 billion euros are going to be invested in the Constanta, Galati, Drobeta Turnu Severin, other harbours, and the fairway. Also, by 2020, we plan to have, in total, seven international airports upgraded and also others that will also be open to international flights or regional airports. Moreover, the Plan includes 10 multimodal centres worth 281 million euros," the Minister of Transportation told a press conference held at the end of the government meeting.
As related to the implementation strategy of the announced projects, Rus specified that it will be worth 45.45 billion euros overall.
About the financing strategy of the Transport Master Plan, Minister Rus showed that, besides the amounts that were already included in the memorandum adopted by the government, they decided to have "a supplementary amount prepared worth seven billion euros." The one to be in charge with the fiscal space to cover this amount will be the Ministry of Finances,' he added.
According to him, the document approved on Wednesday also includes several recommendations that were made by the Ministries of Environment and European Funds.
'This is the final variant of the document that we approved. We have already discussed it with the European Commission. Over March 9-13, we are going to have here the technical mission to present it this document. On March 10, most probably, we will present the document's final variant once again, as soon as the technical mission left, before the joint transport committees during the March 16-21 week, and then we will submit this final variant, while also having the committees' approval, to the European Commission,' stated the Minister.
At the same time, Rus said that the government will also work to solve the requests formulated by Bulgaria and Serbia for an additional procedure needed to assess the environment strategy, 'given that [...] what we are going to do with respect to the fairway might affect their environment.'
"Thus, we still have to solve this one thing until we can say the document is complete and we are able to establish the implementation schedule," said Minister of Transportation, Ioan Rus.