The auto parts industry is one of the Romanian economy’s largest employers, with some 180,000 employees, of which about 10,000 have lost their jobs since the beginning of the crisis.
“We, the manufacturers of car components in Romania, who acutely feel the need for development and upgrading, find it hard to understand why we cannot benefit from these funds, while our competitors in other EU countries can. It is essential to urgently identify an institutional solution to unblock this problem,” said Stroe.
Based on the European Economic Recovery Plan, adopted last December, the EU allocated funds to be lent to the European auto industry through the European Investment Bank (BEI). Since May 2009, BEI has encouraged the favouring of loans for auto part suppliers, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, and aid for poorer European regions.
Stroe believes that another move that could help auto parts producers would be the involvement of the government in the European Commission’s effort to create, with the European auto industry, represented by the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) and the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA), a special program to assist auto industry suppliers at the European level. “There is a plan to establish a €3 billion guarantee fund, which will allow suppliers to obtain €10-15 billion from commercial banks. The program will deal with the issue of liquidity in the European auto component industry, including a pan-European factoring solution. Special attention will be accorded to local financing instruments to implement these proposed actions, so that these can become rapidly accessible to component suppliers in new states, such as Romania,” added Stroe.
