Financiarul

Romania needs a mutually advantageous economic cooperation with Russia, President Traian Basescu told the annual meeting with the heads of diplomatic missions accredited to Bucharest on Wednesday. In his speech the Head of State also approached the subject of the relations with China, Turkey, and the Middle East.

“In time our relation with Russia has had special aspects, but we have never ignored each other. The influence of Russia in the region is quite significant and Romania is aware of this reality. The message I want to convey here is that Russia can have Romania as its partner as long as our interests are observed.

We need a mutually advantageous economic cooperation with Russia as regards trade exchanges, which already grew four times during my first term in office,” said the President. The Head of State appreciated that the relation with China was “an example of the success of the Romanian foreign policy” and added that Romania wanted a consolidation of the traditional economic relations.

“We were particularly satisfied with the pledge taken the Chinese authorities to support the investments made by their national companies in Romania. Our country is already the main destination of China’s investments in Central and South-Eastern Europe. On a medium term we aim at the materialization of the ample partnership and, for this year, at a successful participation in the World Exposition in Shanghai,” added Traian Basescu.

The President also voiced Romania’s support to Turkey’s joining the EU and said that this country’s economic and energy potential placed it “in the foreground” of the Romanian “diplomatic efforts.” “We shall never stop informing everybody of our conviction that this potential will only be fully used if Turkey joins the European Union, of course the conditions implied being observed, an aim that we are strongly in favour of,” said the Head of State.

Traian Basescu said that an “area of utmost interest for Romania” was the Middle East both due to the implications of its security situation and to the opportunities of economic cooperation. “These opportunities cannot be turned to account unless progress is made in the peace process, whose valuable reference points are the road map and the Arab peace initiative,” added the President.

The Head of State also pointed to Romania’s special relation to Israel thanks to their 61-year long diplomatic relations, but also to the fact that about 500,000 speakers of Romanian live in Israel. But Basescu said that both the turning to account of the strategic partnership with South Korea and the materialization of the enlarged partnership with India were very important for Romania.

He mentioned the relation with Canada regarded from the viewpoint of the transatlantic relation, the strengthening of the economic cooperation with Japan or the states in South-Eastern Asia, especially with Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. The Head of State also spoke of a closer cooperation with states in Latin America and of the development of a cooperation with African countries, especially with the ones in the north of the above-mentioned continent:

Algeria, Egypt, Morocco or Tunisia. The President also made an appeal to solidarity against the numerous challenges at world level: “I have no better example than the solidarity proved by all the countries in the world against the natural and humanitarian disaster in the sorely tried state of Haiti.”
Traian Basescu thanked the foreign diplomats accredited to Bucharest for “the admirable activity” they carried out in Romania and for the efforts they made with a view to consolidating the bilateral cooperation.