NEWS from the Ministry of Public Works, Transportation and Habitat

XSELL at Ploiesti
The Bucharest Railway Public Transportation Company makes public its intention of introducing the new XSELL of electronic travel tickets emission system, starting with February 13, 2001, in Ploiesti Sud Railway station.
This modern selling modality for tickets has already been implemented since last year in Bucharest Basarab and Ploiesti vest railway stations.
The system proved itself to be efficient, du to its capacity of promptly emitting the tickets with supplementary information enlisted on it, and also do the safe cash administration.

Meeting between BEI and MLPTL.
On January 29, 2001, an official meeting between Mr. Miron Mitrea, Minister of the Public Works, Transportation and Habitat and the representatives of the European Bank for Investments, presided by Mr. Guido Bruch.
During the meeting that took place at CFR Palace, they discussed and evaluated the projects in the field of transportation financed by EBI. Mr. Miron Mitrea, said that the Ministry he is running is trying to finalize all these projects before term, expressing his hope of continuing the collaboration with EBI for new financial projects.
The Romanian Minister stated that he would like to allocate EBI investments to other sectors, as public works field, which is the new activity object of the Ministry.
EBI representatives stated that the entire amount of financial disbursements for the respective projects used to be of EURO 510 billion, only for 2000. They also announced that their financial institution is willing to continue the collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works, Transportation and Habitat. They intend to allocate in the future, important amounts of money also for the other fields within the structure of this Ministry.

Romanian - Hungarian Relationships
The Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Habitat, Mr. Miron Mitrea met at the headquarters of the Ministry, Mr. Jgyarto Istvan, the Ambassador of Hungary in Bucharest. This meeting took place at the end of January, this year.
During the debates, Mr. Jgyarto Istvan expressed the intention of the similar Hungarian Ministry House to develop some contracts with the Romanian Ministry and he also set out a meeting between the resort ministers of the two countries.
They also agreed for meeting with the representatives in the railway field, in order to improve the relationship between the two railway systems and to find out some solutions for diminishing traveling time on route Bucharest - Budapest. They also discussed about the possibility of renegotiating the agreement regarding the road transportation, which was signed for the first time in 1972, but which is now considered as obsolete. The Ambassador of Hungary in Bucharest, Mr. Jgyarto Istvan, concluded the meeting by expressing the intention of MALEV Hungarian Company to have a good collaboration also with the Romanian airline company, TAROM.

Free traveling with TAROM
On January 30, 2001, Mr. Miron Mitrea, Ministry of Public Works, Transportation and Habitat, issued an Ordinance regarding the allocation of free tickets for aerial transportation. According to this instrument, persons that request this kind of tickets in view of travelling to places where they are going to be under medical treatment that is impossible to be done in Romania, will benefit of this free of charge ticket for the respective routes of TAROM company. These tickets will be granted only with the approval of the Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Habitat.

Oana Bran and Silvia Mitulescu, reporting.