Romania’s Deputy Prime Minister Champions Foreign Investment, Cites Dacia as Success Story
Table of Contents
The Deputy Prime Minister is urging politicians to embrace foreign investment, pointing to automaker Dacia as a prime example of a successful partnership that benefits the nation.
- Oana Gheorghiu, the Deputy Prime Minister, highlighted Dacia as a model for successful foreign investment in Romania.
- She criticized the narrative of “selling the country” when welcoming investors, arguing it hinders economic growth.
- Gheorghiu called for depoliticization of state-owned companies and a focus on efficient management or strategic partnerships.
- She suggested exploring partnership options for struggling state-owned enterprises like TAROM and CFR.
Bucharest, February 29, 2024 – Romania should abandon the “paradigm” of resisting foreign investment, according to Deputy Prime Minister Oana Gheorghiu. Speaking Sunday evening on Euronews Romania, as reported by News.ro, Gheorghiu championed the Romanian automaker Dacia as a shining example of how international collaboration can bolster a nation’s economy without sacrificing sovereignty. “We should think about getting out of this paradigm that we don’t sell our country, that we don’t welcome foreign investors,” she stated.
Why is Romania losing opportunities by shying away from foreign investment? Gheorghiu argued that the fear of “selling the country” is counterproductive, leading to economic losses. “We don’t sell our country, but we lose it every day with every penny that companies lose,” she explained. She emphasized that Dacia’s success demonstrates a different path. “I think of the Romanian company Dacia, I think it’s a successful model and we didn’t sell our country. On the contrary, we ended up producing one of the best-selling cars in Europe here in our country.”
A Model for Growth and Public Services
Gheorghiu pointed to the tangible benefits Dacia has brought to Romania, including job creation and infrastructure development. “I think that the people there got jobs again because there is a serious company that did good work in Romania with Romanians,” she said. She also noted the company’s contribution to public services, citing the construction of a hospital in Mioveni as a positive outcome of the investment. “Mioveni has one of the good public hospitals that was built recently. So, here is a successful model that we should look at and realize that no, on the contrary, we are not selling our country when we bring in serious partners.”
Appealing for a Shift in Political Discourse
The Deputy Prime Minister directly appealed to her political colleagues to move beyond the rhetoric of national asset sales. “If the analysis shows that a partner is needed, either at CFR, or at TAROM, or at another company, we should look at it from a healthy perspective and not let go again, and it’s a call I make to politicians not to start cultivating this phrase again, we are selling our country,” she urged. Instead, she advocated for a pragmatic approach focused on maximizing efficiency and generating revenue to fund essential public services. “No, we are not selling our country, we are trying to use what we have as efficiently as possible, to produce money that will help us have quality public services, to build hospitals, to have better schools.”
Gheorghiu also addressed the challenges facing Romania’s state-owned companies, acknowledging that few are performing well and many operate as monopolies. “We should see why the state companies in Romania do not produce money,” she stated. She stressed the need for either strong, independent management or strategic partnerships to revitalize these entities. “We have to realize that these companies need either very healthy management and here we go back exactly to the reform of state companies and the corporate governance that we are trying to implement and that is where the big battle is, either we depoliticize and let healthy management work, or we find partners with whom these companies can grow. Otherwise we will talk again and again and again about reform and we will keep losing.”
Gheorghiu concluded by emphasizing her commitment to reform, but acknowledged the difficulty of implementing change without broader political support. “My mandate is reform, I alone however, without political will, it is very difficult to implement,” she said.
Watch the newest VIDEO
