3Q: Laurentiu Dinu, Accreo Romania GM

What is the absorption rate of European funds in Romania?

Through Axe 4 Romania has about EUR 160 million available for this year. At the end of last year, there was a fund reallocation of about EUR 110 million for the operational program for increasing economic competitiveness and the energy axis. This demonstrates companies’ relatively high interest in renewable energy projects. No correct figure for  the absorption rate  can come before 2014-2015. While until now Romania has focused heavily on quantitative absorption, from now on it should focus on implementation. If you look at the much quoted  figure of 12 percent of total structural  funds (excluding funds for agriculture) you will see that over 90 percent of this  figure is actually pre-financing, which means  the refund rate is marginal. Financial corrections are expected.

What are Accreo’s plans in this context?

We hope that by the end of this year we will have about another 30 new projects in our portfolio to join the current 30. Accreo focuses on large companies and projects that range from renewable energy and energy efficiency to green-field. It has been managing projects worth about EUR 30 million since last April.

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We will definitely have problems, starting with the negotiation for the new funds package available for Romania after 2014, unless we have good results this year. A good level of absorption, given the difficulties in communication among companies and state consultants, is a challenge.

After that Romania will not be able to adopt an exclusively centralized mechanism. At this time the regional model will be another source of concern because funds will be allocated mainly to regions. More worrying is the lack of impact of projects and the obvious fragmentation.

What is the state of the local consultancy market?

It is currently a learning-by-doing process, strongly linked to how the absorption of EU funds works in Romania. From my point of view, the level of absorption should triple compared with last year’s results to ensure significant development in the consultancy market and that Romania does not face the danger of disengagement from structural funds from December 31, 2012. While last year Romania absorbed up to EUR 2 billion this year the figure should exceed EUR 5 billion.

dana.verdes@business-review.ro