Romania can be the door to Qatar’s investment in the European Union, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said in Doha, on Wednesday, during talks with his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.
The Romanian Prime Minister underlined that the two states have the capacity to build an in-depth partnership that might acquire strategic values. According to the Prime Minister, the bilateral partnership with Qatar should be extremely pragmatic and built around concrete economic projects and investments. Marcel Ciolacu explained this is the reason why he was accompanied by several ministers in his cabinet, holders of portfolios from strategic areas of mutual interest, such as transport, energy, economy, agriculture and digitalization.
Several bilateral cooperation documents were signed during the working visit to Doha, with the value of the projects presented by the Romanian officials exceeding 15 billion Euros.
In their turn, the Qatari authorities stated their interest in getting Bucharest’s support to promote their priorities in relation to the European Union.
One of the Romanian government delegation’s objectives is the Black Sea Port of Constanţa (in South-Eastern Romania), that offers multiple logistical opportunities and which will certainly play an important role when the reconstruction of Ukraine begins.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu: “Our priority is the Port of Constanta, which has become the most important distribution hub at the Black Sea, for Central and Eastern Europe. We will also discuss the possibility of developing other infrastructure projects, including ways to increase the capacity of the Timisoara International Airport, to finance the construction of the Comarnic – Braşov highway and upgrade the Predeal-Braşov railway. We are talking about mature projects that can be carried out through public-private partnership”.
In another move, the Romanian Prime Minister mentioned the opportunity created by the new natural gas exploitation works in the Black Sea and emphasized the Romanian specialists’ expertise in the field. According to Marcel Ciolacu, these are elements that can facilitate the involvement of prominent Romanian relevant companies in programs designed to develop the oil output, through advanced methods of hydrocarbon recovery from mature or hard-to-reach deposits in Qatar.
As far as agriculture is concerned, talks focused particularly on ways to facilitate the export of Romanian produce to Qatar, under mutually beneficial terms.
On this occasion, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the two states regarding cooperation in the field of veterinary quarantine, the import and export of living stock and poultry, not affected by epidemics and contagious diseases.
Prime Minister Ciolacu also underlined that Romania has a competitive advantage in such fields as real estate, tourism, IT and cyber security, the defense industry and mineral waters. All these, the Prime Minister pointed out, offer opportunities for direct Qatari investments in the Romanian economy and pave the way for the development of an in-depth bilateral partnership.