800bn lei in incentives for depressed areas investors

The companies to have invested in depressed areas in Romania benefited from total incentives worth some 800bn lei throughout June 1999-June 2001, said Development and Prognosis minister Leonard Cazan. “We will complete the analysis of all 29 depressed areas by August 20.

The analysis compares the investments made in a specific area, the expenses made for certain payments such as duties, taxes and the incentives the companies in question benefited from in every area,” Cazan explained.

“I strongly believe that this was the time when investors had the highest incentive-related revenues. Now they are no longer investing as much as they did, so that the total incentive volume will go down and their contribution to the budget will keep increasing,” Cazan said.

The minister announced he was to work out a joint order together with representatives of the Finance Ministry and of the Agriculture Ministry by the end of next week, which would regulate the processing of meat and foodstuffs in depressed areas. This decision was prompted by the fact that many companies operating in those areas were breaking the law. Mediafax