Bucharest, May 15 (IANS): Romanian Prime Minister Florin Citu said that the government made a decision on Friday to gradually ease the country's coronavirus-related restrictions starting from Saturday.

As of Saturday, the night curfew will be lifted, and the mandatory mask rules will only be applied in closed public spaces and crowded open public spaces, including markets, public transport stations and workplace, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, restrictions on store opening hours will also be lifted, and the closing time of restaurants, bars and cafes will be extended from the current 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. local time, said Citu.

Outdoor sports competitions could take place with up to 25 per cent of total seating capacity, while shows, concerts, public and private festivals or other cultural events in the open space can be attended by a maximum of 500 people, with at least two square meters of space for each person, said the prime minister.

He stressed that participants in the above activities must wear masks, have been fully vaccinated for over 10 days and have a negative RT-PCR or antigen test finished within specified time.

The pandemic situation has improved recently in Romania. The authorities attributed it to stricter control measures and intensified vaccination.

The latest official statistics showed that, as of Friday, a total of 6,519,397 vaccine doses have been administered since the country started vaccination campaign in late last December.

Currently, vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are being used in Romania.

Globally, 284 candidate vaccines are still being developed -- 100 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Friday.