ELIGIBLE BENEFICIARIES

(1) Companies (micro-enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises) that meet cumulatively, at the time of enrollment in the program, the following eligibility criteria:

a) are registered in accordance with Law no. 31/1990 on companies, republished, with subsequent modifications and completions, or based on Law no. 1/2005 on the organization and functioning of cooperatives or based on Emergency Ordinance of the Government of Romania no. 6/2011 for stimulating the establishment and development of micro-enterprises by entrepreneurs starting in business, with subsequent modifications and completions;

b) are micro-enterprises, small or medium-sized enterprises, according to the provisions of Law no. 346/2004 on the stimulation of the establishment and development of small and medium-sized enterprises, with subsequent modifications and completions, which transpose into national legislation European Commission Recommendation No. 361 of May 6, 2003, published in Official Journal of the EU No. L124 of May 20, 2003 (having up to 249 employees and achieving an annual net turnover of up to 50 million euros or holding total assets of up to 43 million euros, equivalent in lei);

c) are established no later than December 31, 2019, inclusive;

d) individuals who are associates or shareholders and who own multiple companies cannot apply under this program with more than one company;

e) have fully private share capital, are registered for tax purposes in Romania, carry out their activity in Romania, and at the time of payment of the aid, they will have their headquarters/branch in Romania;

f) are considered autonomous, affiliated, or partner enterprises;

g) the activity for which funding is requested is authorized by the National Trade Register Office at least 12 months before the date of enrollment in the program, according to art. 15 of Law no. 359/2004 on simplifying formalities for registration in the Trade Register of natural persons, family associations, and legal persons, their tax registration, as well as the authorization of the operation of legal persons, with subsequent modifications and completions. The financing request is made for a single CAEN rev. 2 code;

h) have no debts to the consolidated general budget, both for the registered office and for all workplaces, at the time of signing the financing agreement. Applicants with staggered debts are not eligible under the program;

i) 1) Have not exceeded the de minimis threshold of 200,000.00 euros over three consecutive financial years for a single enterprise, as defined by EU Regulation no. 1407/2013 of the Commission of December 18, 2013, on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid, with subsequent modifications and completions, and 100,000 euros over three financial years for beneficiaries engaged in freight transport for others or for hire. The ceilings apply regardless of the form of de minimis aid or the objective pursued and regardless of whether the aid is granted from state budget funds or community funds.

2) In case, by granting new de minimis aid, the maximum threshold mentioned in point i paragraph (1) as appropriate would be exceeded, the enterprise may benefit, if requested, from the provisions of this de minimis aid scheme only for that fraction of aid which, combined with the rest of the de minimis aid received previously, does not exceed this threshold. In addition, it may opt, until this aid is granted, to reduce the funding requested or to return, in part or in full, aid already received, which will be proved with appropriate documents.

3) In the case of mergers or acquisitions, when it is established whether a new de minimis aid granted to a new enterprise or the enterprise making the acquisition exceeds the relevant threshold, all previous de minimis aids granted to all merging enterprises are taken into account. De minimis aids legally granted before the merger or acquisition remain legally granted.

4) If an enterprise is divided into two or more separate enterprises, the de minimis aids granted before separation are allocated to the enterprise that benefited from them, namely, in principle, the enterprise that takes over the activities for which the de minimis aids were used. If such allocation is not possible, de minimis aids are allocated proportionally based on the book value of the social capital of the new enterprises as of the date on which the separation takes effect.

5) De minimis aid granted through this measure can be cumulated with de minimis aid granted in accordance with Commission Regulation (EU) No. 360/2012, with subsequent modifications and completions, within the limit of the threshold set in that regulation.

6) De minimis aid can be cumulated with de minimis aid granted in accordance with other de minimis regulations within the limit of the 200,000 euro threshold (100,000 euros for enterprises engaged in road freight transport for others or for hire) equivalent in lei.

7) For mergers and/or acquisitions that change the control status, in case the value thresholds provided by art. 12 of Competition Law no. 21/1996 republished, with subsequent modifications and completions, are exceeded, they shall be notified to the Competition Council, and the implementation of the transaction of economic concentration nature is possible only after obtaining an authorization decision from the competition authority.

8) This aspect may also concern the mentioned splitting transactions, in case the assets and/or the fully operating enterprise resulting exceed the value thresholds provided by the Competition Law.

9) De minimis aid does not cumulate with state aids granted for the same eligible costs or with state aids granted for the same financing measure through venture capital if such cumulation would exceed the intensity or the maximum relevant value of the aid established for the specific conditions of each case by a regulation or a decision of exemption adopted by the Commission.

10) De minimis aids not granted for or not related to specific eligible costs can be cumulated with other state aids granted under a category exemption regulation or a Commission decision.

j) They are not in dissolution, judicial reorganization, liquidation, forced execution, operational closure, insolvency, bankruptcy, or temporary suspension of activity at the time of enrollment, and do not enter into any of the states mentioned throughout the program implementation period;

k) They have not been subject to a decision of the European Commission / AIMM / Competition Council or another state aid/ de minimis provider for the recovery of state aid/de minimis, or, if subject to such a decision, it has already been executed and the claim fully recovered, with interest and penalties;

l) They contract an investment loan from the partner credit institution/institutions, under the bank’s and this program’s conditions;

m) They maintain or increase the number of existing employees at the time of submitting the reimbursement documentation, for a minimum period of 6 months from the date of AIMM’s payment agreement issuance. The Register of Employees in Revisal, to be submitted at the time of reimbursement, must contain active, suspended, and terminated employees and must be issued in the calendar month in which the reimbursement documentation is submitted. If, during the mentioned period, vacancies occur due to various causes, the beneficiary is obliged to fill the vacant job(s) within a maximum of 45 days, maintaining the minimum number for which funding was received.

(2) Companies carrying out authorized activities under this implementation procedure are eligible under the Program, under the CAEN Rev. 2 codes corresponding to the following divisions: 41 Building construction
63 Information technology service activities
74 Other professional, scientific, and technical activities
79 Activities of travel agencies and tour operators; other reservation and tourist assistance services
86 Human health activities

(3) Companies conducting the following activities are not eligible under the Program:

a) fishing and aquaculture activities covered by Regulation (EU) No. 1379/2013:

031 – Fishing
032 – Aquaculture

b) activities related to the primary production of agricultural products as listed in Annex 1 to the Treaty establishing the European Community, with the exception of products obtained from fishing and aquaculture covered in Regulation (EU) No. 1379/2013;

c) processing and marketing activities of agricultural products listed in Annex 1 to the Treaty establishing the European Community, in the following cases:

– when the value of the aid is determined based on the price or quantity of such products purchased from primary producers or put on the market by the respective economic operators;

– when the aid is conditioned to be partially or fully transferred to primary producers (farmers).

d) production or marketing of arms, ammunition, explosives, tobacco, alcohol, substances under national control, plants, substances, and narcotics and psychotropic substances;

e) production or marketing of energy products as defined according to Law no. 227/2015 on the Fiscal Code, with subsequent modifications and completions, leasing activities;
“Processing of agricultural products” means any operation carried out on an agricultural product resulting in a product that is also an agricultural product, except for activities carried out on farms necessary for preparing a product of animal or vegetable origin for first sale.

“Marketing of agricultural products” means the holding or exhibiting of an agricultural product for sale, offering for sale, delivery, or any other form of introduction to the market, except for the first sale by a primary producer to wholesalers or processors and any other activities related to preparing the product for this first sale; a sale made by a primary producer to final consumers is considered marketing if it takes place in separate premises reserved for this activity.

f) export-related activities, namely, aid directly linked to quantities exported, the establishment and operation of a distribution network, or other current expenses related to export activity;

g) aids conditional on the preferential use of national products over imported products;

h) aids for the purchase of freight road transport vehicles granted to economic operators whose business object is the provision of freight road transport services for others or for hire.
(3) If an enterprise operates both in one of the exempted sectors (as mentioned above) and in one or more sectors or fields of activity included in the scope of this scheme, its provisions apply to aids granted for non-exempted sectors.

(4) To benefit from the provisions of the scheme, the enterprise in question must ensure, through appropriate means, such as separating activities or distinguishing between costs, that activities carried out in the excluded sectors do not benefit from de minimis aid granted in accordance with this scheme.

(5) Economic operators cannot benefit from de minimis aid under the Program in case there are family ties, including spouse, up to the second degree inclusive, and in-laws up to the second degree inclusive, between the shareholder structures of the beneficiary and its suppliers or when the winning bidder holds the majority stake in two participating companies for the same type of procurement in the context of acquisitions made by private applicants for non-repayable funds. The applicant shall submit a declaration to this effect with the first reimbursement request, within Annex 5 to this procedure attached to the reimbursement file, in accordance with the current legislation on conflict of interest.

(6) Beneficiaries and/or shareholders/partners/administrators of companies who have been convicted by final court decisions of corruption offenses or economic-financial offenses are not eligible.

(7) Identification by other authorized institutions or by law enforcement authorities, at any time during the program implementation period, of acts incriminated by the Penal Code or other special laws, committed by the enterprise, legal representatives, shareholders/partners/administrators in connection with the fraudulent acquisition or use of European and/or public funds, leads to the rejection of the funding application, or, as the case may be, to the recovery of the aid granted together with the related interest.

TYPES OF FINANCIAL AID

(1) The purpose of the financing must fall into one or more of the following eligible categories:

a) Technological equipment in the form of tangible assets from the category of fixed assets described in groups 2.1 technological equipment (machinery, equipment, and working installations), 2.2. measurement, control, and regulation apparatus and installations, and 2.3. means of transport from Government Decision 2139/2004 for the approval of the Catalog regarding the classification and normal operating lives of fixed assets; Depending on the type of beneficiary, the minimum entry value of fixed assets is 2,500 lei with VAT (for non-VAT payers) and 2,500 lei without VAT (for VAT payers);

b) Equipment/technologies/solutions/systems specific for energy efficiency of the activity for which funding is requested; Examples of specific equipment for energy efficiency: power generators, high-efficiency industrial boilers, pumps, ventilation systems, heating/cooling systems, industrial burners, industrial heat exchangers, uninterruptible power sources (UPS), gas condensing boilers/centrals, cogeneration and trigeneration systems, utilities measurement and monitoring systems, photovoltaic panel systems, mini-wind turbines, including energy efficiency works for spaces owned by the applicant company. The proof of ownership type of the production spaces for which energy efficiency works funding is requested shall be provided at the time of submitting the documentation to the bank chosen to obtain the investment credit. Rental contracts, commodatum, or any other form of space usage rights transfer are not considered ownership titles;

c) Technologies/equipment/systems/solutions/services, etc. for the collection, recycling, reuse of industrial waste;

d) Presentation website of the activity, online store, domain registration expenses without hosting, website/online store promotion expenses, necessary software/software for carrying out the activity, electronic signature, IT equipment, PC-type computing equipment, central processing unit, server, monitor, printer/copier/multifunctional, including portable systems, licenses necessary for carrying out the activity, smartphones, tablets;

e) Vans and special purpose vehicles, except for all G symbol vehicles, according to the Order of the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, and Communications no. 2224/2020 for the approval of the Regulations on type approval and issuance of the vehicle registration certificate, as well as type approval of products used therein – RNTR 2;

f) 1) Acquisition of working spaces and production spaces. The value of the asset to be purchased under the Program shall be based on an evaluation by an ANEVAR expert evaluator, except for mobile workspaces/production spaces.

2) The assets under this category must not have residential destination both at the time of purchase and throughout the Program implementation period.

g) Guarantees granted and commissions applied by non-banking financial institutions for investment loans contracted under the program;

h) Two mandatory informative plaques, under the penalty of non-granting AFN, in the amount of at least 10 lei, but not more than 500 lei of the eligible expenses value, which will be placed as follows:

– one inside the space at the project implementation location (indoor), in the most visible place for visitors (reception, secretariat, waiting area, etc.);

– one outside the space at the project implementation location (outdoor), in the most visible place for clients, next to the space where the activity takes place (street facade, building entrance, etc.).

(2) Each expense incurred must be related to the flow of activities/subactivities necessary for the implementation of the CAEN Rev 2 code activity for which funding is requested.

(3) Expenses related to approvals or other fees, including VAT, packaging, equipment/ machinery transport, and commissioning of equipment/machinery are not eligible.

(4) The purchased assets must be new and put into operation at the implementation location at the time of their certification, and for all assets purchased under the program, accelerated depreciation provided for in Law no. 227/2015 on the Fiscal Code, with subsequent modifications and completions, does not apply.

(5) Financial aid is not granted for assets purchased under leasing, second-hand, or for assets subject to double financing.

(6) Applicants (enterprises) can benefit from the non-repayable financing obtained under the Program only once during the 2023-2026 period.

(7) Beneficiaries are obliged to ensure in favor of AIMM/credit institution the tangible assets purchased through the Program against all insurable risks, for a period of 4 years (implementation year + 3 monitoring years) and to assign all rights they will acquire under the insurance to AIMM/credit institution, as the case may be. This insurance can also be made annually, with the obligation to send a copy of it to AIMM/credit institution, as the case may be, at the time of renewal.

(8) An individual cannot be a shareholder/partner/legal representative in a supplying company to the companies benefiting from AFN in which they hold the status of associate/shareholder/legal representative.

(9) The budget allocated through Law no. 368/2022 approving the state budget for the implementation of the measure in 2023 is 54,115,000 lei, with an estimated number of beneficiaries for 2023 being 108.