OREANDA-NEWS. January 16, 2015. Mayor of Iasi Gheorghe Nichita said this to Romanian mass media and added that this year the road design is going to be drawn up, the contractors are going to be selected and the funds are going to be provided for the works to start in either 2015 or 2016.

Besides, this year will see the construction of the Tirgu-Neamt-Ditrau and the Ditrau-Tirgu Mures roads starting. According to Romania’s Transport Minister Ioan Rus, Romanian authorities attach the highest priority to the construction of the Iasi-Ungheni –Tirgu Neamt highway to be later extended to Tirgu Mures.

The Minister hopes that by 2018 the historic regions of Romania will have been connected by a modern highway. It should be noted that Romania’s transport enterprises earlier also referred to the construction of the Tirgu Mures- Iasi-Ungheni highway as a project of great importance for Romanian authorities. The Federation of Transport Operators of Romania (FORT) confirmed this in its address to Romania’s Premier Victor Ponta and Transport Minister Ioan Rus, proposing that the Tirgu Mures-Iasi-Ungheni highway, also known as the Moldova highway, be included in the general plan for transportation infrastructure development.

As FORT believes, the construction of the highway will add jobs and spur tourism and export, levelling both: Romania’s region of Moldova and the Republic of Moldova to all the rest of Romanian regions as for road facilities and living standards. Building the highway is a prerequisite for Romania’s region Moldova to escape poverty, FORT states. Besides, when built, the highway will become a significant transport artery of Europe, crossing Carpathians, connecting Romania and Hungary with Moldova and Ukraine and shortening the European road from East to West by more than 300 kilometres.

The highway is expected to increase the number of tourists and jobs and the volume of exports by 30%. According to ex transport minister of Romania, the Tirgu Mures – Iasi-Ungheni highway could be built with European money and incomes from fuel excises and the construction works could start as early as in 2015.