Previous government did not earmark budgetary resources for subsidizing farmers

The 313 million lei planned in the 2009 state budget for subsidizing the agricultural producers has been distributed, but not all the beneficiaries received money, Minister of Finance Veaceslav Negruta said, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. “The previous government earmarked a lower sum for subsidizing the farmers and not all the producers could be adequately subsidized. As the farmers expect these subsidies, we had to increase the agriculture subsidization fund by 250 million lei from the about 2 billion lei allocated by the International Monetary Fund as Special Drawing Rights. Under the amendments proposed to the 2009 budget law that the Parliament adopted in first reading, the subsidization fund this year will be 563 million lei. Immediately after the amendments are adopted, we will work with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry to distribute the subsidies to the beneficiaries as soon as possible so that they manage to prepare for the spring agricultural campaign,” he said. Negruta also said that a series of debts as regards the refunding of the VAT have been cleared. At the first stage, there were refunded the low sums. The sums of over 2 million lei will be paid at the second stage, in two-three weeks. The minister added that a part of the debts for the works, services and goods provided by the economic entities engaged in the public procurement process will be also settled.