Page 153 - Proceeding 2015

FLORESCU Margareta and POTCOVARU Ana-Mădălina
FAMP
LOCAL DEVELOPMENT’S INFLUENCE ON THE FREEDOM OF THE DECISION-MAKING
CCASP
PROCESS IN LOCAL COLLECTIVITIES IN ROMANIA

agri-food industry (the agricultural industry is one important pillar for the city mostly on medium and long
time periods).

The third and last objective that the municipality considers is improving the quality of life and
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
environmental protection by providing support for skilled labour force, education and backing creativity as
an essential growth factor while preserving in the same time the natural environment. The overall quality
of life is essential in creating a good working and investment environment, thus being able to attract larger

investments from within the country and from other member states of the EU, while ensuring the existence
of highly skilled labour force to fully cover the human force requirements.

The city of Bistrita has a population of 85,154 inhabitants, thus making the city a medium sized one inside

Romania and has a somwhat complex economy for its size, dominated by the service sector,
supplemented by a well developed industrial sector, focused on the export, developed over the last 50

years, even sincer the communist era. Although it has a special potential and favourable natural
conditions, the agricultural activities have an insignificant contribution to the city's economy, being limited
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest the communist era, that leaved the agriculture underdeveloped. Compared to the structure of the regional
only to the subsistence agriculture, a fact happening after a massive industrialization of the area during

and national economy, Bistrita-Năsăud County has a higher weight of the industrial sector and services,
and a lower weight of agriculture and constructions (Dumitru, 2014).

The industry and services contribute with about 56% to the total turnover achieved by the companies in
Bistrita and provide approximately a half of the jobs found in the city. Althourgh the larger part of the
turnover is generated by large companies, with over 49% of the total, there are still many small and

medium companies, which managed to employ almost a third of the total number of people, with a large
proportion of those businesses being in the industrial sector, thus generating larger added value that is
redistributed inside the country. Unlike other cities located in the center and West of the country, the IT&C

sector is less developed in Bistrita, taking in consideration the large industrial basis that the city has.

In order to maintain the positive trends and to ensure a long term sustainable development, the Local
Development Strategy of Bistrita Municipality was created in the period between 2007 and 2010, in order

to be implemented starting from 2010, even before the new EU budget for 2014-2020 period. This certain
strategic planning aims at defining the strategic milestones for the entire community for a period of 20

years (Bistrita Municipality, 2011) with the overall objective of creating a more efficient public
administration in order to enhance more economic benefits for the community. Furthermore, the strategy
focuses on five strategic action fields like urban development and transport infrastructure, environment

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