In the last year and three months, non-repayable funds of about EUR 13 billion euros were drawn to Romania’s energy sector, because the private sector was a partner that came up with projects and owned investments, Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja said on Thursday evening.

„The reality is that without you, we simply cannot do what we set out to do. In the energy sector, in the last year and three months, under my tenure, we managed to draw somewhere around EUR13 billion in non-repayable funds. And we didn’t do it alone. We did it because we found in the private sector a partner who came up with projects, who owned investment. It is also about energy production, but also about production in industry. And in recent weeks we have signed contracts with very brave people, who have undertaken to produce photovoltaic panels in Romania, including a new factory in Barlad, in Vaslui County, with co-financing from the ministry of over EUR 30 million. We have a similar call for the production of batteries,” said the minister at the Gala of the National Ranking of Companies 2024, an event organised by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania.

He added that there are very brave Romanian entrepreneurs, „who are fighting competitors from distant areas” and who have proposed that the benefits of the energy transition are not only safer, cheaper and greener energy, but also to have a competitive industry.

„So, we need your resources and we need one more thing, and I will say very clearly and categorically: we need your expertise. The world is changing, the pace of change is faster than ever. There is no expertise in the state apparatus, not even in the Ministry of Energy, although we have very good colleagues, to manage financing or regulations related to new technologies – hydrogen production, carbon storage and capture, battery storage, pumped storage hydropower plants. On all these levels, the solution that we have approved both at the Ministry of Energy and at the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Transformation is that of a round table in which we sit as equal partners and, in fact, we build a better Romania together, because, without you, Romania cannot be better. We are only playing the part of a facilitator and, if we cannot help you, my principle is at least not to puzzle you, if possible, because we have confused you enough in all these years,” Burduja told the entrepreneurs.

AGERPRES