The Rural Investments Financing Agency is celebrating 23 years since its establishment, during which it managed European funds for agriculture and the development of the rural environment in Romania. Starting with the implementation of the pre-accession Program, SAPARD, continuing with the National Rural Development Program in the two financial programming periods, 2007 – 2013 and 2014 – 2020, until now when the Strategic Plan for the Common Agricultural Policy in the period 2023 – 2027 (PS PAC 2023 – 2027), AFIR has maintained a standard of excellence in managing European money.
"We are celebrating a significant moment in the Agency's history, reaching its 23rd anniversary. It is a time of reflection, gratitude and commitment. For the past two decades, RIFA has been at the forefront of encouraging rural development, supporting farmers and promoting sustainable investment in rural areas. We have seen remarkable progress, from modernizing agricultural infrastructure to supporting rural communities with financial resources. As we look back at our achievements, we must acknowledge the dedication of the AFIR team over the years, the unwavering support of our partners and the openness of rural communities. Together we turned challenges into opportunities, and the countryside into centers of development and prosperity. Our core values remain the guiding principles for everything we do, integrity, professionalism and dedication being the fundamental beliefs that lead to the success of our activity over time", said George CHIRIȚĂ, the General Director of the Rural Investments Financing Agency.
Through the three financing programs (SAPARD, PNDR 2023, PNDR 2020), the Agency concluded 181,890 financing contracts with farmers, entrepreneurs and public authorities in rural areas, for the development of investments with a total value exceeding 14.3 billion euro. The value of payments made by RIFA amounts to 20.1 billion euros, non-refundable funds for financing investment projects, as well as for compensatory payments related to environmental and climate measures.
RIFA's achievements, supported by figures and concrete data, would not have been possible without a permanent concern for procedural simplification, to move the administrative effort from the beneficiary to the institution, by creating an efficient framework (mechanisms, flows and online systems with the better cost-efficiency and time-performance ratio) for receiving and evaluating applications for financing investments with non-reimbursable funds granted to Romania by the European Union.
In this sense, RIFA has constantly applied actions to reduce bureaucracy in order to support the beneficiaries of investments financed by the National Rural Development Program (PNDR). Starting from 2015, when the implementation of PNDR 2014-2020 started, the Agency increasingly digitized the flow of documents (online submission of financing and payment requests, online processing of purchases, use of electronic signature, verification of the reasonableness of costs with the help of the Database with reference prices, open data for implemented projects, etc.) to make it as simple as possible for our beneficiaries to get funding.
Also, to reduce bureaucracy and administrative flow, RIFA concluded a series of collaboration protocols whose object is access to the databases of several institutions (APIA, ANAF, ANCPI, MAI, ONRC, Competition Council, etc.) and thus we procure certain documents ourselves, without requesting them from our beneficiaries.
Now, RIFA will open the first sessions for receiving funding requests within the new financial programming implemented through the Strategic Plan PAC 2023 - 2027. In a first stage, sessions will be opened for the installation of young farmers, investments in animal husbandry, agricultural access infrastructure, basic road infrastructure, establishment and modernization of irrigation infrastructure, knowledge transfer, investments in the fruit sector and agricultural and fruit processing.
The Rural Investments Financing Agency is an always active institution, which has managed to take a step forward each time to perform and apply innovative solutions at the level of the administrative system, so as to best serve farmers, processors, associative forms, entrepreneurs and rural public authorities.
