Small and medium enterprises (IMM) would have to borrow at higher costs than the government, because their credibility is lower than that of the state, Mihai Bogza, board member on the Council of Foreign Investors said yesterday, at a round table intended to support the SME sector.

He said: "As long as the Romanian government borrows at spread of 5%, compared to the borrowing rate paid by the American government, it's natural that any company in Romania, which is less credible than the Romanian government, should borrow at an increasingly higher cost, as the difference of economic potential between them and the Romanian government increases".

Mihai Bogza stressed that the SME sector is important for any economy, but those companies need a strategy, that would establish priorities based on which to allocate resources.

Aurel Şaramet, the president of the National Fund for the Guarantee of SME Loans (FNGCIMM) yesterday said that the SMEs represent the "backbone" of any economy, and it's the part of the economy that gets "diseased" the most frequently.

He mentioned that three months ago, the Fund received a capitalization of 100 million Euros, which given the current state of SMEs, is enough. Aurel Şaramet said that in Portugal, the guarantee fund was capitalized with 1 billion Euros.

"If we had been capitalized with one billion Euros ourselves, then we would have been able to guarantee loans of up to 10-12 billion Euros. But the banks aren't too happy to expose themselves to major loans in a year or two", according to him.

Aurel Şaramet said that in Romania, about 14% of the total number of SMEs are financed by banks, whereas in Europe that number revolves around 70-74%, with one of the explanations being the risk that the SMEs pose.

He went on to say: "The balance to 100% is financed using the company's own funds, using pri