In the Official Gazette with the number 836 of September 15, 2023 was published the Government Decision (HG) no. 844 of September 14, 2023 on the approval of the Procedure for the implementation of the National Program for the development and support of the food industry INVESTALIM for the period 2023-2026, the methods of granting, the quantitative and qualitative indicators of the investment, as well as the criteria for establishing the score for the applicant enterprises.
According to the document, the procedure for the implementation of the National Programme for the Development and Support of the Food Industry INVESTALIM for the period 2023-2026, the modalities of granting, the quantitative and qualitative indicators of the investment, as well as the criteria for establishing the score for the applicant enterprises, hereinafter referred to as the Programme, establishes the general rules applicable to enterprises applying for state aid under the programme provided for by OUG no. 65/2023 for the approval of the National Programme for the Development and Support of the Food Industry INVESTALIM for the period 2023-2026, the procedure for granting state aid, the general conditions for the payment of aid, namely the quantitative and qualifying indicators of the investment, the criteria for establishing the score for the applicant enterprises, as well as the rules for maintaining the financed investment.
The implementation procedure applies to applicant enterprises that carry out activities in the economic sectors provided for in Article 4 of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 65/2023, namely:
- CAEN 1011 – Processing and preserving of meat
- CAEN 1012 – Processing and preserving of poultrymeat
- CAEN 1013 – Manufacture of meat products (including poultrymeat)
- CAEN 1020 – Processing and preserving of fish, crustaceans and molluscs
- CAEN 1031 – Processing and preserving of potatoes
- CAEN 1032 – Manufacture of fruit and vegetable juices
- CAEN 1039 – Processing and preserving of fruit and vegetables n.e.c.
- CAEN 1041 – Manufacture of oils and fats
- CAEN 1051 – Manufacture of dairy products and cheese
- CAEN 1061 – Manufacture of mill products
- CAEN 1071 – Manufacture of bread; manufacture of cakes, biscuits and other baker’s wares
- CAEN 1081 – Manufacture of sugar
State aid granted under the Programme is available to enterprises that cumulatively meet the eligibility criteria laid down in Articles 7 and 8 of OUG 65/2023 at the date of registration of the application for financing agreement, and the investments made by them cumulatively meet the eligibility criteria laid down in Article 9 of the aforementioned normative act. Eligible expenditure must meet the conditions laid down in art. 10, para. (1) of the said emergency ordinance.
Thus, according to art. 7 of OUG 65/2023, enterprises that cumulatively meet the following eligibility criteria at the date of registration of the application for financing agreement may benefit from state aid under the Programme:
a) they are registered according to the Companies Law no. 31/1990, republished, with subsequent amendments and additions, concerning the registration of enterprises;
b) they make an initial investment in Romania, in one of the sectors listed in the Annex;
c) do not fall within the category of “firms in difficulty” as defined in Article 2(18) of Regulation (EU) No 651/2014;
d) is not in receivership, insolvency, bankruptcy, judicial reorganisation, dissolution, operational closure, liquidation or temporary cessation of activities, or is not in a similar situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;
e) they are not the subject of a decision to recover State aid or de minimis aid or, if such a decision has been issued, it has already been enforced and the aid has been fully recovered, including the related recovery interest, in accordance with the legal provisions in force;
f) they have not relocated to the establishment where the initial investment for which aid is requested is to take place in the two years preceding the registration of the application for agreement to finance and, at the time of registration of the application, give an undertaking that they will not do so for a period of up to two years after completion of the initial investment for which aid is requested;
g) they do not register outstanding tax liabilities and other budgetary claims administered by the central tax body, defined according to Article 1, item 31 of the Law no. 207/2015 on the Tax Procedure Code, as amended and supplemented;
h) are registered with their registered office in Romania at least at the time of the first aid payment.
According to Article 8, active enterprises may benefit from state aid under the Programme if they cumulatively fulfil, at the date of registration of the application for funding, the criteria set out in Article 7, as well as the following eligibility criteria:
a) they have a return on turnover greater than zero in one of the last three completed financial years;
b) they have positive equity capital in their last completed financial year.
Newly established enterprises may benefit from state aid under the Programme if they cumulatively fulfil, at the date of registration of the application for funding, the criteria set out in Article 7, as well as the following eligibility criteria:
- a) they have a subscribed share capital of at least 100 thousand lei;
- b) they do not belong to shareholders who own or have owned in the last 2 years prior to the date of registration of the application for financing agreement another enterprise registered under Law no. 31/1990, republished, with subsequent amendments and additions, which carries out or has carried out the activity for which the financing is requested.
Please note that state aid is granted under the Programme to enterprises making initial investments, i.e. initial investments in favour of a new economic activity. Investments related to the diversification of an establishment’s production through services or fundamental changes in the general production process of the overall provision of the service(s) targeted by the investment in the establishment are not considered eligible expenditure.
Assets purchased for investments made by enterprises must be new.
The maximum aid intensities for both large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises shall be determined in accordance with Annex 1 and may not exceed 70% of the eligible costs of the investment project.
Investments made by beneficiaries under the Programme must generate contributions to regional development, through the payment of taxes and duties to the general consolidated budget and local budgets, for the period of implementation of the investment, i.e. 4 years from the date of expiry of the period provided for in art. 8 para. (1) of this procedure (obligation to start the investment within 6 months from the date of issuing the agreement) and 5 years from the date of its completion.
Granting state aid
According to the Procedure, in order to benefit from state aid, the applicant enterprise must obtain an agreement for financing from the Agency for Financing Rural Investments, hereinafter referred to as AFIR.
Submission and registration of applications for funding agreement is carried out in sessions of 30 calendar days.
The period for submission and registration of applications is communicated by AFIR on the website www.afir.info, at least 10 working days before the opening date of the sessions.
Submission and registration of applications for funding agreement shall stop at the deadline provided for in the notice launching the submission session.
Thus, the applicant enterprise submits online on the AFIR portal an application for funding agreement, accompanied by the following supporting documents:
- approved annual financial statements corresponding to the last completed financial year, except for newly established enterprises;
- the business plan showing the viability of the initial investment and the economic efficiency of the enterprise, including the legal documents proving the existence of a real right over the building/tenancy or right of claim, conferring the right to execute/realize the investment; the legal documents proving the existence of a real right over the building/tenancy or right of claim shall be submitted if the applicant holds them at the time of submission of the application for financing agreement, otherwise they shall be submitted within 6 months after the issuing of the financing agreement;
- power of attorney signed by the legal representative of the applicant company, if a person other than the legal representative signs the application for financing agreement;
- a copy of the identity document of the person authorised to legally represent the enterprise;
- opis with the documents submitted.
The application form for funding and the procedure for submitting and registering the supporting documents are set out in the applicant’s guide for the INVESTALIM state aid scheme, which is approved by order of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development within 30 days from the date of publication of this decision in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I.
We mention that AFIR calculates, on the basis of the evaluation criteria provided for in Annex no. 2, the score for the enterprises that submit applications for funding during the submission session and draws up the list of applicant enterprises, ordered in descending order on the basis of the score obtained, mentioning the State aid requested in each application for funding.
Within a maximum of 10 working days from the closing date of the session for the submission of applications for financing, AFIR publishes the list of applicant enterprises on the website www.afir.info.
Starting from the date of publication of the list on the AFIR website, applications for funding agreement that fall within the budget allocated to the session are considered in the order of the score obtained.
Following the evaluation process of the application for funding agreement, AFIR sends to the applicant enterprises, as appropriate:
- a) agreement for financing, if all the conditions and eligibility criteria provided by the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 65/2023 are cumulatively met;
- b) request for additional information and/or clarification documents, other than the mandatory ones, in order to complete the application for funding agreement. AFIR requests additional information and/or clarification documents if there are inconsistencies in the information provided, when the documents do not comply with the conditions of conformity set out in the applicant’s guide or when additional documents are required in order to solve the application;
- c) letter of rejection of the application for funding agreement, if:
- the application for funding agreement is not accompanied by the mandatory documents provided for in Article 3;
- all the conditions and eligibility criteria laid down in the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 65/2023 are not cumulatively fulfilled;
- the enterprise does not comply with the deadline of maximum 10 working days for the submission of additional information and/or clarification documents from the date of communication by AFIR of the request for additional information and/or documents for the completion of the application for financing agreement;
- the information on which the calculation of the score was based according to art. 3, para. (3) of this procedure is not confirmed following the verification carried out in accordance with para. (1).
If the budget allocated to the session is exhausted, the analysis of the applications for funding agreement shall continue, in the order of the score obtained, within the limit of the total budget allocated to the scheme, until it is exhausted.
If there is a budget available following the issue of rejection letters, the analysis continues, in the order of the score obtained, with the applications for funding agreement that did not initially fall within the total budget allocated to the scheme.
The draft agreements for financing shall be approved in the order in which they were issued, within the approved budget, in accordance with the law, without exceeding the total budget allocated to the scheme, as provided for in Article 16 paragraph. (1) of OUG 65/2023.
We remind that, according to art.16, the maximum budget of the scheme is 2.921,0 million lei, i.e. the equivalent of approximately 590,0 million euro, as follows:
a) commitment appropriations for issuing agreements for financing for the period 2023-2026;
b) budgetary appropriations for the payment of state aid for the period 2024-2031.
Applicants whose applications for financing agreements do not fall within the total budget of the scheme will be notified of their rejection.
AFIR may issue financing agreements under the scheme from the date of entry into force of this decision (15 September 2023), but no later than 31 December 2026, in compliance with the European State aid legislation in force at the time of issuing the financing agreements and the regional map authorised by the European Commission, within the annual budget allocated to the scheme.
Please note that the documents submitted by the applicant company on its own initiative in order to complete the application for funding agreement are not taken into account in the evaluation process of the application for funding agreement.
AFIR checks and evaluates the applications for funding agreement accompanied by the supporting documents within 30 working days from the date of the analysis of each application for funding agreement.
It is important to note that all documents submitted to AFIR by the company must be submitted in Romanian. In the case of documents submitted in a foreign language, the enterprise must submit these documents accompanied by translations into Romanian, certified by authorized translators.
The documents issued by the applicant company must be electronically signed by the person authorized to legally represent the company, with a signature based on a qualified digital certificate issued by a trust service provider, in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC, which is in the official list of the European Union and can be found at https://eidas.ec.europa.eu/efda/tl-browser/#/screen/home.
Legal basis:
– HG 844/2023 on the approval of the Procedure for the implementation of the National Programme for the development and support of the food industry INVESTALIM for the period 2023-2026, the modalities of granting, the quantitative and qualitative indicators of the investment, as well as the criteria for establishing the score for the applicant enterprises;
– Emergency Ordinance 65/2023 for the approval of the National Programme for the Development and Support of the Food Industry INVESTALIM for the period 2023-2026;
– Fiscal Procedure Code (approved by Law no.207/2015, published in MO no.547 of 23.07.2015), as amended and supplemented.