Foreign investors looking for farming land

Large pieces of farming land are increasingly harder to come by in Romania these days, as a result of the higher demand from foreign investors, says Pasquale Calone, EuroMerger Italian consultancy representative. “It is hard to find such compact expanses of land, although many investors are looking to buy pieces of farming land 10,000 to 15,000 ha wide for productive purposes,” Calone added. He explained some of the reasons why Italian business people were drawn to invest in Romania were the possibility to gain access to SAPARD funds, the good quality of the soil, the existence of the water sources for irrigation, as well as the cheap work force, considering competition in Italy is intense and the production costs are high. “They are interested in ecological farming but also in animal husbandry or grape-growing. Italians want to produce and process in Romania,” Calone added. Established in 2000, EuroMerger provides services and consulting for Italian business people looking to invest in Romania. The chairman of the National Union of Realtors (UNAI) has recently said more than 80% of the farming land in Western Romania had already been bought by foreign capital companies registered in Romania and the same thing was happening to commercial spaces in big cities. ZF