Polish development strategy inspires Romania: report

The authorities in Bucharest plan to emulate parts of the Polish plan, which has been devised by the conservative government in Warsaw and is known as the Strategy for Responsible Development, the Rzeczpospolita newspaper reported.

Among other measures, the Romanians are interested in using a similar package of regulations to make it easier for people to do business in the country, and they also want to launch a similar programme to support innovation, the paper said.

Romania also plans to set up a state investment vehicle modeled after the Polish Development Fund (PFR), Rzeczpospolita reported.

The fund’s CEO, Paweł Borys, has joined a team of economic policy advisers to the Romanian government, according to the paper.

Borys told Rzeczpospolita that Romania is struggling with a number of economic problems similar to those in Poland although “it is starting from an even lower level."

Romania’s problems include an outflow of some 3 million workers and a low level of innovation, according to Borys. In addition, the country’s banking sector is 90 percent held by foreign investors and the country has the biggest VAT gap in the European Union, he said.

According to Borys, the Polish Strategy for Responsible Development, championed by Deputy Prime Minister and Development and Finance Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, "has identified several development pitfalls that Poland must avoid if it wants to stop being a peripheral economy."

All this also holds true for Romania, "which, much like us, wants to progress to a higher stage of economic development,” Borys said.

Last February, the government in Warsaw adopted an ambitious long-term economic development plan for the country under which some PLN 1 trillion was expected to be injected into the Polish economy over the next 25 years.

(gs/pk)

Source: Rzeczpospolita