More than 23 bln euro handled by agricultural payments agency in 10 years since Romania's EU accession

AGERPRES special correspondent Nicoleta Gherasi reports: In the 10 years since Romania's EU accession, the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture (APIA) has handled over 23 billion euro worth of European and national funds, with the annual absorption rate of EU funds exceeding 96 pct, APIA General Manager Adrian Pintea told a debate organized on Wednesday as part of the Moldova Business Week.

"Every year APIA receives on average 900,000 applications for a surface of more than 9.5 million hectares and these applications are all being processed by APIA staff. There is a high amount of funding and staffing matches these figures. APIA currently employs 4,800 people," Pintea said.

He pointed out that back in 2007 APIA was running less than 10 instruments to support Romanian farmers, but with the implementation of the new common agricultural policy, there are over 100 payment schemes in place for farmers since 2015.

Since 2007, after Romania's EU accession, APIA has been implementing schemes and support measures for farmers with funding from two European sources: the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF), which is implemented strictly by APIA, and which provides direct payments, market measures, measures for the promotion of agricultural products; and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), through which APIA manages the measures devolved under the National Rural Development Program. Apart from these two European funds, we also have a substantial amount from the national budget, from where the transitory aid and national state aid is disbursed. In the period 2007 - 2014, APIA has disbursed 7.38 bln euro of the allocation of 7.71 billion euro via EAFG, and the financial allocation for the 2015 - 2020 financing period was in excess of 11 billion euro; up until now payments performed stand at over 5 billion euro. As for the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, we had allocations worth 3 billion euro for devolved measures in the first financing period, and payments of 2.940 billion euro; for the new financing period we have 3.11 billion euro in allocations and payments so far exceed 1.350 billion euro, the APIA head explained.

Adrian Pintea also spoke about co-work with the Republic of Moldova's Agency for Intervention and Payments for Agriculture under a cooperation protocol initialed in 2010 and renewed in spring 2018, aimed at the exchange of experience and best practices.

The fifth edition of the Business Week is taking place in Chisinau November 27 - 29, organized by the Investment Agency, under the aegis of the Government of the Republic of Moldova; the event intends to establish new, long-lasting and transparent commercial relations with partners worldwide, with about 1,000 participants from 53 countries attending.