Ashgabat, 2 December 2016 (nCa) — The embassy of Romania in Turkmenistan hosted Thursday a reception to mark the 98th National Day of Romania.
The National Day of Romania has dual significance. As ‘The Great Union Day’ it dates back to 1 December 1918 when the unification of Transylvania and the provinces of Bessarabia and Bukovina with the Romanian Kingdom took place. The consolidation of lands enabled the unification of the Romanian nation.
The sense of nationhood and progressive aspiration of the people gained fresh momentum after the Revolution of 1989. Since then Romania has joined NATO (2004), EU (2007), and restructured its economy at all levels. During the second half of this year Romania registered the economic growth of 6%, the largest in the EU.
Romanian recognized the independence of Turkmenistan on 21 December 1991. The diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on 21 July 1992. Romania was the first European country to open its embassy in Ashgabat.
Alin-Florentin Barbu, the Charge d’Affaires of Romania said in his speech that high level bilateral interaction was an ongoing process, including the meeting of the foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UNGA session in New York this year, the 6th meeting of the joint commission in June 2016 and the consultations on consular affairs in April in Bucharest.
He said that Romania provides 25 scholarships every year to the Turkmen students and so far about 200 students had benefited from this arrangement.
Barbu said that the bilateral trade turnover in 2015 was USD 108.4 million and in the first half of 2016 it amounted to USD 55.7 million, showing a slight improvement. This doesn’t surely represent the full potential, he added.
He said that Romania supports the current negotiations aimed at providing the Turkmen gas to Europe and other projects of transport corridors and communications infrastructure connecting Europe with Central Asia through the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.