Rohan, Carpatcement: Who gives money for the infrastructure?

Mihai Rohan, president of Carpatcement Holding, who is running a business worth 300 million euros per year, says the Romanian government should have focused on investments in infrastructure, as it promised to do at the beginning of the year, so that the decline of the construction market would not be as abrupt as it has been. If the government fails to make its payments on time, cement consumption will continue to slide over the first few months of next year. “Unfortunately we relied on the 10 billion euros in investments announced at the beginning of last year, with less than half of them materialising. Now we have a country with three prime ministers and no government, and this will show in cement sales in the first quarter of next year, which will halve,” Rohan says. He believes the state should take out more loans for the infrastructure, rather than for salaries and pensions, and be firmer about what works it considers a priority. Stefan Varfalvi, president of Imsat, a 100 million-euro business that deals in installations and the construction sector, says there have been many meetings with the Boc cabinet, but they did not result in concrete action. We did talk, though in vain. We did not have as many meetings with the prime minister in five years as we did in the last five months. For instance, there are EU funds available for the railway infrastructure, but the works cannot start because the projects are not ready.”