Premier Boc: Best Anti-Crisis Measure - Massive Investments In Infrastructure

The best anti-crisis measure is to make massive public investments in infrastructure, Prime Minister Emil Boc said while in Suceava yesterday. He added that the Government had allocated 20% of the State Budget for 2009, that is, 10.2 billion EUR, for this purpose.

"We don"t want to repeat the situation where we end up in October or November, as it happened many times before, and the money initially allocated for investments is transferred to personnel expenses, or furniture, or luxury cars, and the actual investment becomes second priority. We want to be in a situation where we add money to the investment budget in October or November, because the initial sum has been spent, and not to transfer it to other budget lines, which are not so necessary for the Romanian economy at this time," Premier Boc said.

He told Agerpres that most of the money would go to road construction and assured mayors of "budget support" for the projects already in progress, as well as for new projects. Boc voiced his disappointment with the failure to take advantage of the economic growth in 2008, which was causing a need to cut the budget deficit from 5.2% to 2%.

"It is a pity we couldn"t take advantage of the economic growth of 2008 and put some money aside for a difficult year such as 2009, a year of crisis. Under these circumstances, we need to cut the budget deficit from 5.2% to 2% and prevent the effects of the crisis. The best measure to take against the crisis is to make massive public investments in infrastructure. Such investments maintain and create jobs and allow us to support the Romanian economy, which is affected by the lack of domestic and foreign orders. As the private sector is having difficulties obtaining funds, the State needs to unblock the situation through a massive cash injection into the economy," Boc said.

The Prime minister added that the Government was performing a weekly review of the investment-oriented spending and conformity with the budgetary rules.