The subsidies provided to agricultural producers in the period of 2011-2013 came to 2.2 billion lei, which represents money from the state budget and foreign assistance. The foreign assistance projects and programs in agriculture, which were negotiated and signed, added to about 8.5 billion lei. Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov made public these figures when presenting a report at the end of his tenure, IPN reports.
Vasile Bumacov said that the agroindustrial sector over the last four years remained a strategic sector of the national economy. Over 27% of the population works in this sector, while exports of agricultural products last year came to 41.2% of the GDP. The agroindustrial sector is the only sector of the national economy where the balance of trade is positive, which is the exports are larger than imports. The balance is over US$204.3 million. In 2013, there were exported agroindustrial products to the value of almost US$1 billion.
Compared with 2012, the agroindustrial production last year rose by 38.6%. The minister noted that during his term in office, he supported comprehensive administrative reforms at public institutions of the agroindustrial sector, especially the creation of the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture, which is responsible for subsidization and financial support, the National Food Safety Agency, the Agricultural Information Center, the National Office of Vine and Wine and the consolidated union for implementing and monitoring the program for restructuring winemaking and winegrowing sector.
Vasile Bumacov noted that the economic integration with the EU became a priority in the period. “We want to have access to a market with over 500 million consumers. It’s known that 50% of the Community acquis refers to agriculture and the food industry. We thus need to meet the European quality and safety standards and to adjust our control systems. Besides adjusting the legislation, we should also make considerable effort to de facto implement the technical, security and technological norms and standards and the management and control systems. This process implies considerable financial resources,” he stated.
The most serious challenge for the Ministry of Agriculture in this respect is to synchronize the actions and to implement financial support instruments for achieving such major goals as competitiveness enhancement, modernization and restructuring and support for developing the rural areas.
