13 November 2008 | The quality of roads in Romania puts the country in 123rd place in the world, behind some less developed African and Asian countries, according to a recently released rank list by the World Economic Forum.

Romania is far behind Hungary (in 64th place) and about 20 spots after Bulgaria (105th position), according to the Romanian ziare.com online media. Even the central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, at 104th place, has better roads than the EU’s two newest member states.

To add insult to injury, also preceding Romania in road quality are Albania, the African states of Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia and Cambodia in South East Asia, ziare.com noted.

Despite the grim assessment, great strides in Romania’s road infrastructure are being promised as part of the campaign preceding the parliamentary elections, scheduled to take place in the country on November 30. Political parties propose that an average of 250 kilometres of motorways per year be built until 2012, which seems like a stretch considering that only five kilometres of motorways were opened in 2008.

The two important motorways in question now, according to the publication, are the stretches Bucharest – Braşov and Braşov – Cluj – Bors. The deadline for the completion of the former is 2012 and 2013 for the latter.

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