Non reimbursable funds for the IT departments of SMEs

The Ministry of Communications has launched a new appeal for projects directed to authorized natural persons (ANP) and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). There are available non reimbursable funds of over 20 million lei, money from the World Bank. Till the moment, the companies from the North-East region haven’t applied for this type of projects. By November 24, 2008 the authorized natural persons, the SMEs and also other categories of entrepreneurs from the Romanian private sector can access non reimbursable funds, granted for technology and for adopting solutions type e-business through a Non-Reimbursable Financing Program, directed to the SMEs from Romania. The Non-Reimbursable Financing Program, amounted to 20.070.000 lei (5,5 million euro), is a component of the project “Knowledge Based Economy” and is financed by the World Bank and by the Romanian Government.

The program is directed to some target groups

The program is administrated by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) through the Project Management Unit (PMU) and finances projects with the purpose of improving the competitiveness of the Romanian companies in the domestic and foreign market, by adopting innovative technologies and informatics solutions type e-business. “With this approach, we want to remind to the potential beneficiaries that they can apply to this program, the project being launched several months ago. We have already received some projects, but till now we haven’t received projects from Moldavia’s county, although this region is part of the communities that could benefit of this type of funds”, Iulian Manea, within PMU stated.

He also reminds that the project is directed to some target groups that were a little neglected from the point of view of the nonreimbursable funds: authorized natural persons, one-man business, family-owned business, micro enterprises, SMEs, associations that activate in agriculture,cooperatives, agricultural cooperatives, groups of producers.“Another big advantage is given by the fact that it isn’t about structural funds, this type of financing came through the World Bank having a more simple structure and a less bushy documentation. The project also allows the financing of some entities that till the presented were being neglected”, Iulian Manea stated.

Because it isn’t about European financing, the procedures don’t waste time with the approvals. “We grant the money in a short time because there aren’t necessary approvals. Instead, the sums aren’t paid in advance, because there isn’t prefinancing. The beneficiary receives the cost to be paid for the expenditures after finalizing the project. However, we have a term quite strict for implementing the project, respective of 12 months for each beneficiary”, Iulian Manea says.

The appetite for projects sharpens difficult

The financing is a new stage of the project “Knowledge Based Economy”, which has taken place in 208 communes and 47 small towns from all over the country, where there have been installed computers, copying machines and it is supplied broadband Internet. The Mayoralties from these communities have become local partners of the project, offering well-trained staff and a headquarter for The Public Point of Access to Information (PPAI). The staff (over 500 experts all over the country) benefits of training from MCIT, for being able to offer to the citizens a wide scale of services, from the most simple ones, such as assistance when using the computer and obtaining the information available online which are related to the financing programs, subventions from agriculture or administrative formalities, up to more complex services such as courses for professional development, courses for accessing funds or e-government services. “After we have covered this stage, we are trying now to stimulate the appetite for non-reimbursable funds, mainly in the rural environment. We are waiting to the beneficiaries of the projects, because the weight of the communities which can hand in this type of projects is in the area of Iasi, Suceava, Bacau or Neamt”, the PMU representa-tive says.

Costs for consultancy, eligible expenditure

The value of the offered financings varies from 33.450 lei for the authorized natural persons, one-man business or family-owned business, 223.000 lei for SMEs and can reach up to 446.000 lei for partnerships set up from one SME (beneficiary) and a unit of public or private right (partner), authorized for unfolding development-research activities. For supporting the companies less accustomed with setting up the documentation of the projects, PMU-MCIT has introduced as eligible expenditure for financing the costs related to consultancy services, that can represent up to 20% of the value of the project proposed for financing.
Internet, all over the country

Knowledge Based Economy (KBE) is a project realized by MCIT, financed by the Romanian Government and the World Bank, and has a budget of 69 million dollars. The purpose of the project is of initiating and supporting activities based on knowledge, communication and information technologies, especially in communities disadvantaged from this point of view. Through the project were established with the support of the mayoralty from each locality, 255 Local Community e-Networks (LCeN). Each network includes one Public Point of Access to Information (PPAI) and several points of access in the schools from community, in each public library and in each mayoralty. The sociologic study took place in the period June-July 2008, on a sample of 1075 persons aged between 16-65 years, representative for the population of 1.800.000 inhabitants to whom is addressed the Knowledge Based Economy project. Of these, almost 59% can be trained for using the information technology, as first step in discovering the knowledge based economy. The main feature of the project is that they can solve different matters through computer and by accessing the Internet. The percentage of 59% is made up by 43% that have needs which can be satisfied by the informational technique, but they don’t have access to it or they don’t know how to use it, to which are added 8% (those who have computer but they don’t have access to Internet) and 8% that have computer and access to the internet and want to improve their ability of using them.