Page 143 - Proceeding 2015

CONSTANTIN Daniela-Luminita, GOSCHIN Zizi and ILEANU Bogdan FAMP
THE ECONOMIC REGENERATION OF LAGGING REGIONS. AN INQUIRY INTO THE REGIONAL
OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTION, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON THE ENTERPRISE CCASP
SUPPORT IN THE NORTH-EAST REGION OF ROMANIA

3. ENTERPRISE SUPPORT – A POLICY HEADING FOR THE UNDERTAKEN STUDY

In line with the regional problem and the identified needs and strengths, enterprise support has been
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
chosen as the policy heading for this study. There is clear continuity between the priority axes and key
areas of intervention focusing on enterprise support in the ROP 2007-2013 (Government of Romania,
2007) and the enhancement of SME competitiveness in the Cohesion Policy for 2014-2020, as one of the
key areas for economic growth and job creation. Thus, the ROP 2007-2013 not only contains a key area

of intervention (No.4) entirely dedicated to strengthening the regional and local business environment
but also indicative operations referring to business environment within “Support to sustainable
development of urban growth poles” and “Sustainable development and promotion of tourism” priority

axes (No.1 and No.5, respectively). Moreover, enterprise support cannot be separated from innovation
and labour market oriented support, these two headings also contributing to business environment

consolidation and increasing performance. Also, it should be noted that the ROP is funding infrastructure
investments (hard investments), while innovation (understood in terms of the Oslo Manual) includes
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest As far as Suceava county is concerned, an analysis of the top 10 projects (in terms of value) in the North-
investments in SMEs.

East region and Suceava county shows that in both cases only two projects are directly connected with
the enterprise support heading but the other projects – most of them focused on transportation

infrastructure - also contribute to a better development of the business environment by increased
accessibility (Constantin and Ileanu, 2014).

4. ADDED VALUE

From the very beginning the whole ROP was conceived so as to generate added value in various ways.
For example, as Romania in general and the North-East region in particular suffer from the lack of proper

transport infrastructure important funds have been allocated for this axis. Further on, it helps to enhancing
the accomplishment of the objectives established for other axes such as ‘Support to sustainable
development of urban growth poles’ (Axis 1), ‘Strengthening the regional and local business environment’

(Axis 4) or ‘Sustainable development and promotion of tourism’ (Axis 5). In turn, a better local business
environment or tourism development create additional sources of revenues for local budgets which can

be used for rehabilitation or modernization of county and local roads. At the same time, a better business
environment, a better transport infrastructure, in general better accessibility can contribute to attracting
more foreign investors in the region, etc.

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