The Draft Decision for amending the GD 274/2013 on de minimis aid for investments for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has been approved.

Some of the major changes proposed made by normative act are:

• de minimis aid is up to 100,000 Euro (representing 90% of the eligible project costs) and the company undertakes to create between 1 and 5 new work places;
• eligible applicants are only companies at least 1 year old;
• the CAEN code for which funding is requested must be registered in the applicant’s activity for at least 3 months prior to submitting the project;
• “first come, first served” criterion is no longer used and project evaluation will be done by an on-line application, based on clear and transparent criteria (company size – micro, small, medium, sector of activity, number of new work placed created, location of project implementation);
• additional points will be awarded to companies that will employ one 2013 university graduate;
• operational profit and net profit at 31.12.2013 will be used as  selection criteria between projects with similar score;
• micro-enterprises active in the production/ manufacturing sector and based in rural area will be favored

The opening of the financing line will be announced 5 days ahead and SMEs will have 10 days to submit the projects online.