The Bucharest government adopted the decision to establish the Investment and Development Bank of Romania

By RBJ
Today, the Government’s decision regarding the organization and establishment of the Investment and Development Bank was adopted, the Minister of Finance, Adrian Câciu, said in a press conference. “I would like to emphasize the fact that this Investment and Development Bank will finance investment projects, large infrastructure, infrastructure projects at the level of local authorities, it will finance development projects in the area of ​​small and medium-sized companies, it will finance what it means all the projects that have as their objective the transition to the production economy. The focus will be on development projects of companies undergoing an economic conversion, moving from simple commercial exchange to investment in production and processing. An important element, because we must, however, also reach the level where the Romanian banks, and especially the state ones, operate according to performance criteria”, said the minister.
Banca de Investiții și Dezvolitere SA will be a credit institution 100% owned by the Romanian state, through the Ministry of Finance (MF), with the role of a development institution that will serve Romanian enterprises and other entities belonging to the public and private sector in Romania, in order to supporting the financing of projects that contribute to the economic and social development of the country, increasing competitiveness, innovation and economic growth, as well as increasing the absorption of European funds, according to the draft debated by the Government on Wednesday.
The BID will use a wide range of financial products: individual guarantees and portfolio guarantees, loans for financing working capital and investment projects, loans for energy efficiency. Later, BID will be able to include capital investment (equity) instruments in its range of products.
The bank is administered in a dualistic system by a Supervisory Board made up of seven members, natural persons, of which at most one member can be from among civil servants or other categories of personnel from public authorities or institutions, and a Board of Directors made up of the at least three members.
The initial share capital subscribed by the shareholder, through the Ministry of Finance, is worth up to 3 billion lei, which will be provided from privatization revenues, with the exception of the amount representing the equivalent of 10 million euros, which will be paid from the state budget, within the limits of the amounts approved for this purpose in the subdivision of the budget classification related to programs with non-reimbursable funding from the National Recovery and Resilience Program.
The establishment expenses of the bank, those with the remuneration of the first members, with the contracting of the audit services necessary for the auditing of the bank’s forecasted financial statements, the payment of the costs of the rent related to the bank’s headquarters, including the bank’s logo, are borne until the Bank’s registration with the Trade Register from the Ministry’s budget Finances up to the amount of 6.8 million lei, and will later be recovered by the shareholder after the establishment of the bank, by concluding a loan agreement for this purpose.
In addition to funds from the state budget and/or revenues from privatization, the BID can also use other sources of financing, such as interest income and commissions for the activities provided, loans contracted from various entities on the domestic and international financial markets, funds which can be entrusted on the basis of a mandate from public administration authorities and/or within the framework of investment initiatives at the level of the European Union, subordinated loans and other sources approved by Government decision.
After operationalization, the BID will request the EC to obtain the Pillar Assessment certification, so that it can become a partner for the implementation of financial instruments financed from non-reimbursable European funds, including acting as a Fund of Funds, based on examples from the other EU member states – BGK (Poland), SID Bank (Slovenia), MFB (Hungary), HBOR (Croatia) and the Regional Development Banks of Germany.
At the time of the start of operation, the bank will take over from Banca de Export-Import a României EXIMBANK – S.A. the powers of the Investment Fund of the Three Seas Initiative, together with the participation in its capital and the funds related to the participation in the activity of the Fund and in the actions initiated by its shareholders, in order to promote the projects advanced by Romania.