“ROMANIA – DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY” CONFERENCE Cristian Nacu, IFC: “Romania can become an exporter of green energy throughout Europe” – 25.04.2024

Our country can become an exporter of green energy throughout Europe, believes Cristian Nacu, Senior Country Officer for Romania within the International Finance Corporation (WBG).

His Majesty stated: “IFC is the private sector financing institution within the World Bank Group. In Romania, the IFC portfolio has grown more than four times in six years, to 2.1 billion dollars, being number one in Europe. In world, I think that Romania ranks between the seventh and tenth positions of the IFC. This shows that, in recent years, the IFC has been able to use a lot of financing in Romania, because it is a country that it has huge needs but, at the same time, it has a fairly stable political environment, a relatively safe environment from the point of view of legislation, as well as because it is in the European Union and there is the protection of European legislation a lot of money in projects in Romania”.

Cristian Nacu added: “Among the projects, I would only mention green financing. We support the Government in its decarbonization efforts and the transition to a green economy. We also support the transition to the circular economy and we hope that, in the future, we will do the same for areas such as energy. We are certain that Romania can be a green energy hub in Europe. Romania has a combination of production sources that is almost unique in Europe – solar, wind, onshore and hydro, which is not found anywhere else in Europe At the same time. In terms of nuclear energy, we are the only country in the area that has Canadian, not Russian, technology. All this makes it certain that we can be an exporter of green energy in all of Europe. Romania can also play a major role in terms of the transfer of production chains”.

In the opinion of the IFC representative, European funds for financing various projects and public-private partnerships do not necessarily have to be in competition, but can coexist. “There are happy experiences in countries like Poland or Greece, where the so-called hybrid PPPs were made. European funds can contribute to the reduction of costs and the success of such a partnership,” said Cristian Nacu.

The IFC representative also emphasized that public investments should not be compared to investments made in public-private partnerships, because there are major differences. “The private partner, the moment he assumes the responsibility of building an objective in PPP, he also assumes its lifetime maintenance, he also assumes the management, which we know is, in general, a little more efficient than the public management. And the effect of a partnership well-done public-private partnership can be significantly better. Such investments are also a priority for us and we see that this method of making investments is provided for in the current government program,” said Cristian Nacu.