Prime Minister Ludovic Orban announced on Tuesday that the state aid scheme to support large industrial consumers of electricity is operational, and payment for 2019 will be made in July.
"The good news was that the state aid scheme adopted by the Romanian government and approved by the European Commission, will be commissioned in July and the plant will benefit from state aid as a large consumer of electricity, under which the cost of carbon dioxide emission certificates has been reduced by 16%. (...) The state aid scheme is operational, and in July the payments will be made for 2019," Orban said on a visit to the ALRO aluminium works in Slatina.
He added that the government is also preparing an aid scheme to guarantee loans to large companies.
"We are almost ready with the approval of the state aid scheme that guarantees loans for large companies, loans for investment, for working capital, for reinvestment, a scheme that we have adopted under a government memorandum and will become operational in maximum 10 days so that we can offer a financing tool to large companies as well, not only to small and medium-sized enterprises," said Orban.
He went on to say that the government is also working on a legislative amendment to reduce the cogeneration tax.
"We are also working on a legislative amendment that aims to reduce the so-called cogeneration tax. The price of electricity includes a tax that was established with the aim of financing investment in the upgrading of electricity and heat power plants under a cogeneration system, a tax that artificially increased the price for both industrial and domestic consumers and which did not provide the utility for which it had been intended, because of the almost 2 billion euros that were collected in all during this period, very little money was used to invest in modern and efficient cogeneration capacities," he added.
Prime Minister Ludovic Orban and the ministers of economy and transport visited ALRO Slatina on Tuesday, on the 55th anniversary of the casting of the first aluminium batch.