Official Oprea: We want to launch Start-Up Nation III by end of year, after budgetary rectification

The third edition of the Start-Up Nation government program could be launched by the end of the year, after the budgetary rectification, the Minister for the Environment, Trade and Entrepreneurship, Radu Oprea, who participated in a debate organised by the Brasov Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the new financing opportunities.

"We are currently debating, we were in Bucharest, with the SME Council, in Timisoara, now we are in Brasov and next month - as we plan it, at the end of the month - we need to know how the financing grid will look like, the procedures - very fast and, on the occasion of the first budgetary rectification, we can launch the programme this year," said Oprea.

According to him, following the discussions so far with the business environment, the main changes required regarding the selection criteria of the projects are related to co-financing, entrepreneurial education, a better definition of the CANE codes and the elimination of the criterion related to the number of jobs. "But it is early to decide how these criteria will look. We will continue these debates, try to take into account all the opinions and see what are the best criteria we have, considering that Start Up Nation is a successful program. And I expect that, in the third edition, 2019, there will be many more young entrepreneurs who want to start in business by participating in this program," said Oprea.

He estimated that in this next edition of the programme about 50,000 applications would be submitted.

Regarding the settlements under the 2018 programme, the Minister told the young entrepreneurs who are waiting to receive the money that the necessary amounts will be given from the central budget, adfter the rectification, but he underscored that the payments could be made even in 2020.