Calarasi Municipality is located in the South-East of Romania-border with Bulgaria-Industry-Tourism-Agriculture
ROMANIA – CALARASI MUNICIPALITY – CALARASI COUNTY
Development region: South Muntenia (NUTS II region)
Mayor: Ing. Marius – Grigore DULCE
Location: Calarasi County is located in the South – East of Romania, on the
border with Bulgaria;
Area: 133,22 km²
Population: Calarasi County: 305.391 inhabitants (1,5% of the country’s population)
Calarasi Municipality: 74.737 inhabitants
County natural resources : agricultural fields (84% of the county’s area); the soils (chernozyoms and alluvial soils ) are extremely fertile
Hydrographical network : 2 hydrographical basins (the ones of Danube and Arges)
Relief forms : plain, meadows and ponds
Climate: temperate continental, with hot summers and mild winters, especially in the Danube meadow
INDUSTRIAL SECTOR- Catex S.A. garment factory; Saint-Gobain Glass Factory; Sugar Factory, Combined Feed Factory-metal production; Poultry farming-Avicola S.A; Pulp and paper plant-Comceh S.A; Construction materials -Prefab S.A; former Marctrust Consid S.A. Steel Platform; Donasid-Tenaris S.A. Astalrom S.A., Sidertrans S.A., S.C. Repsid-Martifer S.A .; SC COMCEH S.A. was privatized in 2000 with Italian company EUROPA FEPEN MIL; ROMERICA S.A. Building Materials; SC ROMPLY S.A. – assortments of poplar veneer plywood; SAINT GOBAIN GLASS ROMANIA-float glass; ALDIS built in Călărași the largest meat processing plant in Romania, with 100% Romanian capital.
Calarasi Municipality is one one of the two county’s municipalities.
There are also there 3 towns, 50 communes and 159 villages;
Location:
10 km to the border with Bulgaria – cross-border check point
Calarasi (Ro) – Silistra (Bg), including the ferry-boat for people and goods;
– proximity of the A2 Bucureşti-Constanta Motorway (22 km away);
– 110 km away from Bucharest (capital of Romania with International Henri Coanda Airport);
– 130 km away from Constanta – Black Sea port;
– 60 km away from Oltenita river port;
– Access to TEN-T pan-European transport corridors through DN21 Calarasi-Slobozia;
TOURISM Atractions: the river Danube with the surrounding islands with beaches, well developed flora and fauna where you can practice fishing, hunting (boar, deer, pheasant, ducks, etc.), bird-waching, water sports, etc; sport fishing ponds; religious tourism (in the county there are churches and monasteries as old as the 1600s), archaeological tourism (ruins of the byzantine fort Vicina, old Roman sites), architectural tourism (in the city there are buildings that are hundreds of years old), etc ;
Objectives (future projects):
Rehabilitation of historical buildings,
Completion of construction building of arranging the shore of Borcea River in the city area (investments on the mainland side of approximately 10 mil. euro) and of a tourist port – also investment of about 20 mil. euro;
Developing integrated entertainment areas including water sport areas;
Including the city on Danube tourism maps;
Strategic priorities and attracting investors
Facilities: access to the utility networks (water and sewage, energie electrica, gas, internet, telephone), developed road network, river and rail transport;
Colaborattion: with the business environment, with state institutions involved in regional and local development, with institutions in charge of regulating local development;
Plans: durable development by attracting national and foreign investors and by utilising national or European funds, in the following fields:
development and modernization of local infrastructure (tourism, education, living, port, transport, etc);
industry, processing of agricultural products, etc;
development of the business environment, development of cross border cooperation;
modernization of social infrastructure;
All with the purpose of raising the attractiveness and competitively of the city.
Economic Sector
Commerce: 41.3% of companies are local companies but there are also internationally renown companies like KAUFLAND, REWE, BRICO DEPOT, FLANCO, ALTEX, MOBEXPERT, LEM’S, MEGASTORE, etc.;
Industry: light (textile), food (ALDIS), wood and metal working (MARTIFER, TENARIS, DONALAM), paper and celulose (COMCEH – SOFIDEL ROMANIA SA ), glass (SAINT GOBAIN GLASS ROMANIA SRL ), REMAT SA, and others;
Agriculture: grain (MIGVAS DISTRIBUTIE SRL, CEREALFLOR SRL), pork (IZOCON MC SRL);
Tourism: Highly valuable natural resources unaffected by human intervention in fishing and hunting. There are also 13 boarding units, of which 3 have a status of 3 or 4 stars and are mainly used for weekend tourism;
Education: infrastructure of 26 units (10 kinder gardens, 7 primary schools, 8 high schools and one agricultural university – branch of the Agricultural Science and Veterinary Medicine University in Bucharest;
Culture and heritage: 67 architectural elements (buildings) present mainly in the historical centre of the city (Prefecture, Lower Danube Museum, Municipal Museum, ) but also new architecture (Palace of Justice, “Barbu Stirbei” Architectural Complex, Palace of Finance, etc);
Environmental protection and green energy: there are areas protected by the Nature 2000 Programme. The county also has fields for generating electricity using solar panels, the public illumination system is a modern LED-based system, with the help of non-refundable european funds, the thermal rehabilitation of residential building has been executed, a Sustainable Energy Action Plan has been drafted which showed the current state of local infrastructure, and different types of interventions have been identified, in order to reduce the levels of CO2 emissions by 40% until 2040 (according to the European Agenda)
Health: the infrastructure is represented by the public sector (County Emergency Hospital, Lung Diseases Hospital, 2 Health Clinics, County Ambulance Service)as well as the private sector (individual medical offices of general family doctors or specialists);
Social services: Senior Home, Assistance Centre for Disabled Children, Socio-Medical Centre, Child and Family Support Centre, Day-care Centre for Children in Struggling Areas;
Infrastructure: 151 km, the internal transport network directly connects to pan-European transport corridors (TEN-T), modernized and extended water supply system of 138.6 km, 90% of the used water is recycled, natural gas pipes length are 108.5 km and cover 61% of residences and the electric network services 98.3% of the population;
IT: there is a fixed and mobile phone network available, as well as internet and television via a network of hanging and underground cables;
Sports: Polyvalent Hall – new and modern building with 1.500 seats, sports base with football fields and small sports fields around the neighborhood;
Financial services: branches of the main banks of Romania are present (BCR, BRD, Raiffeisen, OTP Bank, Alpha Bank, Banc Post)
Collaboration and fellowship relations
There are signed and valid external cooperation agreements with states from Europe and other continents:
Bulgaria – Razgrad, Silistra, Dve-Mogili Municipality;
Moldova – Calarasi Municipality and Calarasi County;
Poland – Bielsk Podlaski;
China – Hengyang;
Slovakia – Raslavice;
Serbia – Zajecar;
Italy – Napoli;
National and international institutional affiliations
Association for Romanian Municipalities (AMR) – member;
Energy Cities Romania (OER) – member;
Calarasi Danube Local Action Group – member;
National Red Cross Society of Romania – Calarasi County Branch – member;
Group of countries applying the ROMED/ROMACT Program (for the roma minority);
“Lower Danube” Euroregion founded in 2001 si Ialomita, din Romania, si Regiunile Dobrich si Silistra, din Bulgaria;
Covenant of Mayors – the city is a member since 2012;
Future activities
Development is based on the analysis of the current state, estimations and the prognosis of strategic development documents, in harmony of resource necessity and financing possibilities, investors being both small local investors and large powerful foreign investors;
Promoting the city and it’s potential, the advantages to potential investors, efficient use of resources, especially human and natural, efficient accessing of European structural funds which a main instrument for durable local development;
Orientation toward a greater percentage of green energy consumption;
Modernization of the local road infrastructure and usage of eco and electrical vehicle and charging stations in order to reduce pollution;
Thermal rehabilitation of residential and public buildings in order to raid the level of comfort for the occupants and reduce the cost of utilities;
Improving the urban environment by rehabilitation buildings that have been declared historical monuments;
Improving the slowly decaying natural area in and around the city.
