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Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Thursday that the SME Invest program will be operational "as soon as possible", stating that following the problems with the online application, another one, "one hundred percent functional" is being built.
"It will be operational as soon as possible. There were problems with the application that was used. Following the problems that appeared, an application is being built that is well certified, that will be one hundred percent functional. The Finance minister will announce this when he is one hundred percent convinced, and with the support of the partners collaborating in this project, when he is one one hundred percent convinced that the platform is working,'' said Ludovic Orban, when asked about the situation of the SME Invest program online application, considering that it has not been working for a week.
The prime minister wanted to specify that the SME Invest program is not applied in the same way as in the case of de minimis aid, according to the principle 'first come, first served', but following an analysis of applications.
"I have seen a lot of misinformation. It is not about the 'first come, first served' principle, as it was the case, for example, of de minimis aid. This is simply an application registration. The guarantee fund analyzes, processes each application of each company, and subsequently the banks involved in this project will make decisions regarding the extension of loans for working capital or investment. It will be operational as soon as possible. There should be no concern from the business milieu, from small and medium-sized enterprises. All eligible companies will benefit from the facilities provided for. We have raised the ceiling from the initial ceiling of 5 billion to the ceiling of 15 billion lei. There has been interest from the banking system. Banks have subscribed for a larger capital, of more than 20 billion lei, so there is virtually a determination on the part of banks to get involved in financing campaigns within SME Invest. As such, they should have confidence that the program will be functional and there will be the easiest access possible," Orban explained.
In the same context, the prime minister also referred to the plan to restart the economy envisaged by the Government.
"We are in the process of designing this plan. Practically, we are analyzing all the restrictive measures, respectively we are analyzing all the affected sectors. We establish a mechanism to evaluate each measure, the lifting of each restrictive measure that has been imposed, what the epidemiological risk is, what the set of measures that must accompany the lifting of the restriction must be, so as to reduce the risk of spreading [the new coronavirus]. When we have an assessment, and also the economic impact of lifting some restrictions, when we have a well-developed plan, we will obviously let you know," Orban said.
