Romania Plans Trade Zone

BUCHAREST -- Romania will open a free-trade economic zone near the border with the former Soviet Union next month, in a bid to boost trade and attract foreign investors in the area, a Romanian official said on Monday. "We've got all the necessary official approvals to open a free-trade economic zone in Iasi," said Valentin Iliescu, head of the National Agency for Free Trade Zones. "The zone will be inaugurated by mid-July," he said. Iliescu said the free-trade zone in Iasi, 410 kilometers northeast of Bucharest, near the border with the former Soviet republic of Moldova, was "perfectly located, near the sources of raw materials in the former Soviet Union and the huge markets of Ukraine and Russia."The zone would cover 20 hectares at the first stage, but it would be extended to 90 hectares over the next two years, an official from the chamber of commerce in Iasi told Reuters by telephone. The official, who asked not to be named, said private companies as well as individuals from the United States, France, China, Israel, Moldova and Romania had already announced plans to set up businesses in the Iasi free-trade zone, which offers road, rail and air transport facilities. The agency's immediate plans were to start auctioning off leases for land and buildings in the new free-trade zone in Iasi and similar zones in the country, agency sources said. Under a new law, local and foreign investors would be allowed to lease land and buildings within free zones for periods of up to 50 years. Romania has other free-trade zones in the steel town of Galati, 250 kilometers northeast of Bucharest, in the Danube River port of Sulina, 100 kilometers east of Galati, and in the Constanta South port, which was built as an extension of the main maritime port Constanta, 260 kilometers east of the capital city.