Assistance programme for medium, large companies under consideration

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Tuesday that an assistance programme for medium and large companies in Romania, similar to the one for SMEs (IMM Invest), is currently under consideration for approval.

"Regarding assistance for companies, an assistance programme for medium and large companies, similar to IMM Invest, is currently under consideration for approval. Let's provide these companies as well products to guarantee loans for working capital and investment on partially subsidised interest, so as to improve the funding capacity of these companies," the prime minister announced at the beginning of a meeting of the Tripartite National Council for Social Dialogue.

Orban noted that the government has identified resources in the 2014-2020 financial year to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

"By increasing the flexibility of the funds, we will be able to mobilise an amount of up to one billion euros, which we intend to allocate to small and medium-sized enterprises, either for restarting capital - where business has been discontinued - or to support investment. We have also decided to increase the breadth of support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, by over-contracting measures 2.1 and 2.2 of the Regional Operational Programme, by ensuring over-contracting to almost one billion euros, money also earmarked for various investment grant programmes that are awarded, in particular, to SMEs," said Orban.

Orban underlined that the government wants to use the instrument of state aid for greenfield investment projects "which are either made by new players on the Romanian market, or under development programmes" of some companies already operating on the domestic market.

He added that the government is also considering other smaller programmes on European funds, such as the one under which grants are allocated to companies, provided that they maintain a minimum number of five employees for two years.