Members of the Parliament are now reviewing the extension of the measure adopted last year which subsidized the price of gas produced domestically for fertilizer makers. Tudor Şerban, secretary of state in the Ministry of the Economy, yesterday said, during a round table of the ministers of Economy: "We enacted a similar measure for six months, until October this year. It only reached its goals partially, because farmers did not have enough money to buy fertilizer. For the following six months, we are considering extending this measure for our chemical industry, but this time we want the Ministry of Agriculture to take the appropriate measures to ensure that farmers have the money needed to buy fertilizers. It"s not normal that our subsidized fertilizers get exported since they don"t sell domestically."
Mr. Şerban said he discussed yesterday with the IMF officials about this measure. He says the latter understood the reasoning behind supporting the chemical industry, which employs several thousand people, but requested that the Romanian authorities take the necessary measures to insure that the fertilizers in question are sold domestically.