President Klaus Iohannis welcomed on Tuesday at Cotroceni Presidential Palace a delegation from the World Bank, headed by Cyril Muller, Vice President of the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia region, the meeting focusing on the need for fiscal and budget policies to be responsible ones, informs a press release of the Presidential Administration issued on Tuesday.
According to the release, the talks revolved around the preliminary results of the Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) for Romania and the means to strengthen the collaboration between Romania and the World Bank within the context of the future Partnership Framework for the 2018-2023 interval.
“The talks highlighted the particular need to pursue structural reforms in order to strengthen the conditions of a sustainable economic development. In this regard, the transport infrastructure must be regarded as an absolute priority on the infrastructure public investments’ agenda,” reads the release.
According to the quoted source, the agenda of the meeting also featured the topic of education, which provided the head of state with the opportunity to underscore the importance of the education system and the need to improve it, through the implementation of the dual system included, so as to better meet the labour market needs but most importantly to meet the future requirements of a competitive, dynamic economy.
“The recent economic evolutions in our country have also been tackled, with the need for responsible fiscal and budget policies being emphasised so that the fiscal and budget framework provide predictability and stability to the business environment but also handle potential risks,” the release mentions.
At the end of the meeting, President Iohannis and Vice President Muller reaffirmed the importance of the partnership between Romania and the World Bank with regard to the continuation of reforms and the strengthening of Romania’s progress in certain domains, the quoted source also shows.
Deputy PM Marcel Ciolacu talks with WB delegation on road infrastructure, judiciary, healthcare
Deputy Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu on Tuesday had a meeting with a World Bank delegation, the main topics tackled being road infrastructure, the judiciary and the healthcare sector, the Government informs in a release.
According to the cited source, Deputy Prime Minister Ciolacu stressed the interest and openness of the Government to work with the World Bank, as well as the good collaboration between the two institutions. He also pointed out that the Government’s priority is investment, a context in which he reminded that the Executive aims in 2018 to increase it by 20% compared to 2017.
At the same time, Ciolacu said that investment in road infrastructure is of utmost importance from the point of view of the public interest.
“We intend to make changes to public procurement legislation so that road infrastructure projects can be implemented more quickly and easily, for Romania to develop in this area at the same pace as the countries in the region,” Ciolacu said.
Attending the meeting, Transport Minister Felix Stroe said that the Management Unit for the Ploiesti-Brasov Highway Project is to be established within the ministry, a model which will be expanded if the results are the expected ones.
“Another topic discussed was the collaboration of the World Bank with the Ministry of Justice on projects that focus on facilitating access to justice, building the Justice District as being extremely generous in this respect, both through its financial dimension and its purpose to bring together all judicial institutions in Bucharest in one area,” the release said.
In turn, World Bank Vice-President Cyril Muller underscored the very good collaboration on healthcare and justice projects, the press release also read.
According to the cited source, other topics discussed were the field of education, namely to the implementation of dual education and the coordination between education and the labor market, as well as the promotion of the draft law on public-private partnership.
