It's important that part of the armament Romania can acquire through the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) Programme be produced in our country, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan told Euronews Romania on Thursday evening.

'We are not only talking about the acquisition of armaments, but, very importantly, we sought to locate the production of most of this acquisition in Romania, because this is not only about endowing our army as quickly as possible, but it is also very important to have this production in Romania, because this means jobs in our country, this means technology transfer, the capacity to maintain this equipment in the coming years in Romania, the reduction of costs,' Ilie Bolojan said.

He added that more than 50% of the equipment to be purchased could be produced in Romania.

'In Romania, there are many companies that work for major European car manufacturers, some are located in Romania, I don't know, Ford or Renault, Dacia-Renault, others are in Hungary or Slovakia, but many Romanian companies are operating in this area. Some make injection pumps, some make subassemblies, some make wiring and so on, we must do this in the defence industry as well, because this means development in the coming years,' explained the prime minister.

In addition to military acquisitions, an important component of financing through the SAFE Programme is the civil-military mobility infrastructure.

'During this period, the focus was on allocating the amount that was distributed to Romania through this programme of loans with very advantageous interest rates. The largest part is allocated, approximately 12 billion for military acquisitions, and 4 billion ar e allocated for civil-military mobility infrastructure. And for us, it is a priority that this second component be allocated for the completion of the highway ends in Moldova, such as, for example, Pascani - Iasi - Ungheni, connectivity with the Republic of Moldova, and also looking towards Suceava, the connection with Ukraine,' Ilie Bolojan specified.

In his opinion, the development of the armament industry could create 'thousands of new jobs' in Romania.

'At the end of these negotiations, at the end of November, when Romania will submit its documentation to the European Commission for this credit, we will have some approximate data. There will still be half a year of negotiations ahead to perfect all the details, costs, location and so on, and only in the first part of next year we will be able to come up with some data,' the Romanian Prime Minister also said. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: George Onea, EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)