The micro-financing of the small and medium producers in Romania is one of the stringent issues to be addressed in defining the development prospects of the Romanian agriculture for the next financial multiannual framework of the European Union. The data show that the banking sector fails to cover the need for capital of this preponderance in agriculture in Romania, for which the access to loans with competitive interest rates is essential to shatter the vicious circle of the underdevelopment.
Under the pilot-program “Rural development through entrepreneurship and association” CRPE and Romanian – American Foundation (RAF) set up an interministerial working group on identifying solutions to facilitate fair mortgages to small and medium farms in Romania. Preliminary findings indicate that microcredit institutions could be a viable alternative if they would receive support from the state, by setting up a loan fund / guarantee financed by European funds, enabling them to reduce interest rates.
On February 14, it was held the third meeting attended by representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Department of European Affairs), General Secretariat of Government Fund, Rural Credit Guarantee and the most important microfinancing institutions in Romania.
There were outlined the main alternatives of financial engineering that Romania could set up for the new multiannual financial framework of the EU and they have discussed a series of concrete proposals that will be further developed in the next meeting of this working group.
The event brief is found here
The archive of the participants presentations can be downloaded here