Romania's Govt. publishes procedures for IT SMEs digitization grants program

Romania's Government has published in the Official Journal the procedures to be followed by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the IT sector looking to apply for grants to develop their activity.

These grants are part of a wider government program for digitizing SMEs in Romania, which has a total budget of EUR 150 mln.

The amount allotted to SMEs in the IT sector is EUR 50 mln and comes under two types of grants: state aid for companies developing IT innovations (covered from the state budget) and de minimis grants (covered from EU funds). The budget for the first type of grants is EUR 45 mln and the value for one company varies between EUR 1 mln and EUR 5 mln, Startupcafe.ro reported.

The share of a project's total expenses covered by the state aid varies as well, depending on the nature of the company and the type of innovation it brings. The projects that would qualify for the grants should develop technologies in areas such as IoT; smart city / village / agriculture; cyber security; big data; artificial intelligence / Blockchain / Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR); electronic transactions; e-government / e-administration / e-health / e-education; industrial digitization (automation, robotization).

The de minimis grants will have a maximum value of EUR 200,000, and they will cover up to 20% of the project's expenses.

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