The Romanian government kicked off in late December the procedures for the launch of a state aid scheme “de minimis” aimed to maintain the wages of employees in sectors that are exempted from the payment of the income tax.

The measure targets employees in the IT and R&D sectors. It will also apply for seasonal workers and the disabled.
“The validity period for the state aid scheme de minimis, based on which the requests will be approved and payments will be made, will be 2018-2020 and the total estimated number of beneficiaries in this period will be of 8,760 companies, with a yearly average rate of 2,920 beneficiaries,” said the government in a press release.
The new state aid scheme will have an approved budget of RON 300 million. The allocated amount for each year of operation will be RON 100 million.
Eligible companies need to have full time employees that are currently exempted from paying the income tax.
IT companies have recently warned that the net wages of employees will go down next year after the government decided to shift the payment of social security contributions from companies to employees, while cutting the income tax rate from 16 percent to 10 percent. These measures will be enforced starting January 2018.
The IT sector has gained prominence in the last year in the Romanian economy as multinational groups have invested heavily in development centers locally. The National Bank of Romania forecasts that the IT industry will generate 6.2 percent of GDP this year. Over 100,000 specialists are working in the local IT market.

US agricultural giant John Deere opens its Business Services Center in Poznań, with plans to hire 120people.

“The new center will serve John Deere factories and branches in areas such as finance, accounting, logistics and personnel” - said Mirosław Leszczyński, the president of John Deere Polska. At the same time, he mentioned the company's development in Wielkopolska. The newly created SSC will be responsible for the company's F&A for all European countries, northern Africa and the Middle East. Currently, there are less than 50 people in the center. “We are looking for people who speak foreign languages, such as English, Spanish, German or French. In addition, we are also looking for people who know finance, accounting or human resource management, "says Tanja Knickel, John Deere Financial Manager EMEA.

Offices will be located in Vastint's Poznan Business Garden.

John Deere representatives have been looking for the best place for a long time to be able to create a Business Services Center. Finally, the choice fell on Poland and Poznan. “We decided on Poznań for several reasons. One of them was the fact that the business services industry is thriving in Poland. In addition, there is also a high level of education of Poznan universities and their graduates”, said Tanja Knickel stressing at the same time that the employees in Poznań are "extremely involved in the work". In addition, she pointed out that Poznań is in the top ten cities with the best-developed business services sector. “Poznan is in the seventh place, which is a plus for us, because we did not want to appear in a city where there is already a lot of competition”, said Tanja Knickel.

At the opening of the new business center, the president of Poznań, Jacek Jaśkowiak, was present. “There is no other city in Poland that has such a rapid increase in the number of employees in the business services industry like Poznań. We strive to meet the expectations of investors”, said Jacek Jaśkowiak.