Cycling to the office and back – how can an employer contribute?

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According to the World Health Organization, 15 minutes a day spent on bike can grow the length of life with up to 7 years.

The Romanian Parliament is debating a new draft law which aims to introduce the possibility for employers to encourage the use of bike by their employees on the way to the office or for other professional journeys.

Using the bike tickets that the employers offer, the employees may buy a new bike, cycle accessories, spare parts, maintenance tools or other equipment and can get maintenance services, like periodic inspections and repairs in an authorized workshop. These tickets can be offered once every 3 years and can’t exceed the amount of 1500 lei.

Also, the law provides a second type of bike tickets offered for each kilometer covered by the employee, of a maximum of 300 lei per year (0,33 lei per kilometer).

The amounts spent through the bike tickets are classified as social costs with limited deductibility (art. 25 par. 3b from Fiscal Code).

The initiators say that their project was inspired by the famous “Cycle to work” project which started in 1999 in Netherlands, Ireland and United Kingdom and hope that this law will force the authorities to build infrastructure for bicycles.

Start-up Nation Romania – Updates!

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The implementation schedule and the new score for Start-up Nation Romania Program have been published.

According to this program the entrepreneurs with new businesses may obtain government support of 200.000 RON.

As the implementation schedule shows, registration will be done during May-June 2017, only online, no paper files required.

Along with the implementation schedule some new information regarding the program have been announced:

  • IT programming and production businesses will be favored;
  • will be awarded government support of 200.000 RON for companies that create a job;
  • will be eligible micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) established after January 30, 2017;
  • companies that will create at least two jobs, which will engage the fresh-graduates, those who will make 50% of expenditure on technological equipment  and those that will do innovative business will receive extra points.

EU funds for Agro hostels – special condition applied to start-ups

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In sub-measures 6.2 and 6.4 respectively of the National Rural Development Program (RDP) for non-agricultural rural businesses can be obtained European funds worth between 70,000 euro and 200,000 euro. One popular business for these type of funds is the agro hostels.

For the RDP sub-measure 6.2 – “Support for the establishment of non-agricultural activities in rural areas” is provided a budget of 18.3 million euros for the projects that will finance different non-agricultural rural business.

According to the applicant’s guide in sub-measures 6.2 there are many conditions for obtaining this type of financing. However there is one special condition for start-ups that must be fulfilled for obtaining the funding: the shareholder that has the absolute majority (holding 50% + 1 / shares of the applicant) must prove that has conducted agricultural activity at the time of submission of the application.

This condition regards the previous experience of the applicant, condition that applies also to start-ups.