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- Setting up a company in Romania
- Create a Romanian Joint-Stock company
- Types of Romanian Companies
- Establishing a Romanian representative office or company branch
- Registering a Romanian Micro-Company
- Buying a Romanian Company
- Permits & licenses for Romanian companies
- Incorporating a European Company
- The Trade Register
- The Romanian Land Registry
- Purchasing real estate
- Conditions for foreigners to buy Romanian properties
The main principles regarding the stimulation of foreign investment in Romania
are the following: free access to the market in all the areas of economical
activity, equal treatment applied to foreign or local investors, the foreign
investors’ right to repatriate benefits resulted from investments in Romania
after the payment of due taxes, the protection of investments by certain
guarantees offered by the State.
The most important component of foreign investments in the country according to
State officials were loans from mother-companies abroad to affiliate structures
in Romania, re-invested profits and participations to share capital.
The need to stimulate foreign investments in Romania and encourage certain
sectors of the market as well as point investors to regions less known to them
has been applied to specific legislation. One of the measures to make the
country more attractive to foreign investors was the introduction of the flat
profit tax of 16%.
One of the most recent and important legislation in effect is the OUG 85/2008,
having as purpose the creation of a legal background for the stimulation of
foreign investment in Romania. The methods to stimulate these kinds of
investments are facilities offered by the Romanian State:
- Non-reimbursable funds for the purchase of assets;
- Granting financial contributions from the State budget for the newly created
jobs;
- Granting interest benefits when contracting certain credits as well as other
types of benefits.
These measures instituted on the basis of the above-mentioned legislation are
destined to those investments which:
- are taking places in regions of weak economical activity, respectively with a
PIB/person of under the country’s average;
- are taking place in counties with an unemployment rate higher than the
country’s average;
- contribute to infrastructure projects or modernizing already completed
infrastructure;
- contain projects related to research and development and innovation or imply
the use of high standard technology;
- result in the improvement of energy efficiency, the use of the ecological
energy;
- insures the protection and rehabilitation of the environment;
- insures the development of human resources in the region
Depending on the objectives followed by the State the following are to be
established:
- the sectors of activity in which the investments are made;
- the investment categories, their value, the types of specific activities, the
conditions for maintaining the investment as well as other criteria for granting
them;
- the categories of investments insuring the creation of jobs, the financial
contribution per each job.
The following conditions have to be fulfilled by foreign investors in Romania in
order beneficiate from facilities:
1. Contribution to the completion of at least one of the
objectives mentioned in the present legislation;
2. Deployment of activities part of the area enumerated above;
3. Not to have pending debts to the State budget;
4. Not to have solicited the Ministry of Finance in Romania the payment of
outstanding debts for internal or external credits contracted with the State’s
guarantee;
5. Not to have been loaned with the State’s guarantee;
6. Not to be involved in forced execution proceedings or insolvency etc.
7. Not have emitted against them decisions to recuperate a State aid.
The Romanian Agency for Investment is the body responsible for promoting
Romania’s image in the international business environment and offering of
assistance for the foreign investors, having an intermediary role between the
investor and the Romanian authorities.
The Agency has the following attributions:
- to grant to the investors at their request, technical assistance and guidance
related to the methods of obtaining financing from the competent authority;
- Throughout the technical assistance and guidance, the investors’ request,
concludes a protocol containing mentions regarding the measures of support which
can be applied, the responsible Romanian authorities, the eligibility criteria,
the actual ways to support the project as well as other mentions necessary for
the start-up of project.
The responsible authority verifies the documentation and fulfillment of the
conditions stipulated in normative/administrative documentation.
In the case where the responsible authority confirms the documentation and the
fulfillment of the eligibility conditions, it grants the financial aid for the
project in a term of 30 working days after the required information is
considered complete, after the Romanian Agency for Investments is notified.
Another important legislative measure is OUG 66/1997 pertaining to the
Regime of the Foreign Investment in Romania made through the purchase of State
Bonds. Transactioning bonds, exclusively through the companies authorized in
this sense by the National Bank of Romania or another agent authorized by the
Ministry of Finance. The Romanian Ministry of Finance is also able to limit the
capacity of foreign investors to purchase State Bonds, on both primary or
secondary market.
The same legislation shows that foreign investors in the country are able to
repatriate on due term, totally or partially, the initial investment, the
capital gained from owned State Bonds in Romania, the interest for the deposits
made in Romania resulted from transactioning of the State Bonds on the secondary
market.
A tax of 1,5% is applied to State Bonds. The tax for this portfolio investment
is only applied to initial purchase of State Bonds.
There is also another aspect when analyzing the official legislative measures
created for stimulating investments in Romania, respectively the Bilateral
Collaboration Agreements signed for this purpose with other states or
organizations worldwide. These would have to be taken into account on a case by
case basis.
We have exceeded 100 incorporations of Romanian companies having foreign shareholder structures. We offer complete legal assistance for any type of Romanian company formation including Romanian SRL (LLC) or Joint-Stock (SA) registration, office address and general advice for matters related to taxation, Labor regulations as well as on-going assistance after the formation of the company.
