Money for the Romanian-Bulgarian Tourism

The Romanian and Bulgarian authorities are going to put together a database containing information about the business opportunities in the tourism in the Giurgiu-Ruse zone.

At the end of the last week the Romanian and Bulgarian authorities have signed two collaboration treaties. They are part of the project called "The Development of the opportunities that help reaching the Development Goals of the Millennium with the help of the Cooperation between Bulgaria and Romania". Due to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) financing, which values about 100,000 U.S. dollars, the project will result into two regional development strategies in the tourism sector. These two will focus on the area between the localities Giurgiu (Romania) and Ruse (Bulgaria) and the border crossing ferry transport between Zimnicea (Romania) and Svishtov (Bulgaria).

Opportunities

The cities Giurgiu and Ruse are already an important touristy area. Approximately 15,000 tourists who travel aboard luxury ships visit these localities each year. However, they stay for a short time here because of the little information that the touristy objectives are able to provide. The authorities of the two cities are to put together a database to contain the opportunities and the information needed by the ones willing to invest in this area from the touristy point of view. The web pages containing this data will be available for free in three languages: Romanian, Bulgarian, and English.

Ferry Transport

The collaboration agreement signed by the authorities of Zimnicea and Svishtov will result into a study to be the base of creating a Danube border crossing between the two cities using the ferry. The estimations say that this would shorten the route Hungary-Romania-Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey by 120 km.

Cooperation

The implementation of the project is to be carried out by the Romanian Ministry of European Integration and the Bulgarian Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, as partners. "The common strategy building and the implementation of the projects will contribute to the knowledge and experience exchange and to the partnership establishments between the four cities, the two Euro-regions respectively", stated the UNDP representative for Romania, Soknan Han Jung. This is an extremely benefic fact for Romania as well as for Bulgaria, taking into account that the two countries have been cooperating since 1999 in the domain, and the fact the border between Romania and Bulgaria is to become an internal EU border", said the Secretary of State in the Ministry of European Integration, Maria Crivineanu.