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.