New minister Dracula Park project aside

The State is pushing Dracula Park aside, after two years in which former Tourism minister Dan Matei Agathon has repeatedly said the amusement park is Romania’s chance of going back into the international touristic circuit, and Dracula has been present at every tourism fair attended by the Tourism Ministry.

Furthermore, Dan Matei Agathon would lash out at all those opposing the project, repeatedly invoking the Government’s authority, considering the development of the park had been endorsed by a Government Ordinance later turned into a law.

After having dropped the Tourism Ministry, the Government got “fed up” with the Dracula Park, too. At the end of last week, Miron Mitrea, minister of Transports, Constructions and Tourism (a ministry created by the merger of the Transports and Tourism Ministries), said the Dracula Park project was not a priority for Romania and that he would not become “very actively involved” in it.

“I will take care of more advanced projects. This project has not even reached the Transports Ministry, as the land belongs to the Regie Autonome for Administrating the Patrimony of the State’s Protocol (RAAPS). I talked to the people over there and they said they would go on at a pace set by the private investors. I will not be very actively involved in this project and I will pay much more attention to other projects,” Mitrea said.

The project has managed to raise $3 million from private investors, which have been left unused for over a year now.

About a couple of weeks ago, Miron Mitrea was saying before the joint economic committees of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies he would continue “most of” the touristic programmes started by former minister Dan Matei Agathon, Dracula Park inclusive.

“We’ll pick up where they left off. I haven’t seen the feasibility study devised by PricewaterhouseCoopers yet, but it is about a private investment and I don’t see why we shouldn’t support it,” the minister of Transports, Constructions and Tourism was saying back then.

The originator of the project feels Mitrea is right. “I agree with Miron Mitrea that Dracula Park cannot be a priority for the Ministry of Transports, Constructions and Tourism, as it is a 100% private project, which belongs to its shareholders, particularly because the land is the property of RAAPS and the investors in this project are to be attracted by PwC,” Dan Matei Agathon told Ziarul Financiar.

Sorin Marica, chairman of Sighisoara Touristic Development Fund (FDTS), the company established to manage Dracula Park, had a slightly different reaction. ” In my opinion, Dracula Park is a private project, but a minister does provide a certain weight to such a business, which needs support,” Marica said. He did not care to comment on Mitrea’s statements, though.