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This paper will be later used within the Doctoral thesis: “The Mechanism of Financing Investment Projects by Usage of European Structural Fundsâ€, which is currently under development at the University Babeș Bolyai Cluj Napoca, Faculty of Economics and Business Management, under the coordination of the prof. univ. dr. Ioan Trenca. This paper comes also as a result of the European Funded project PERINPRO “Cross-Border Research Programme - Performance Indicators of the Economic Entities from Bihor-Hajdu Bihar Euroregionâ€. The goal of the project was to identify of a set of common indicators that characterizes companies in the Bihor-Hajdu Bihar Euroregion and which will be used to analyze the financial health of the economic entities in the Euroregion of Hajdu-Bihar- Bihor. The first chapter of the paper will introduce the research and also will present the literature review and the methodological framework: by establishing a common set of indicators for the financial analysis of the companies located in the Bihor-Hajdu Bihar Euroregion. Seven of these indicators considered to be highly important will also briefly described and defined. Some of these indicators are used for the first time in a trans-national analysis over companies located in the Romanian-Hungarian cross border area. In the second chapter the research will be focused over establishing a common ground for usage of the financial reporting documents as basis for the analysis. Several characteristics which differentiate the financial reporting documents from Romania and Hungary will be identified and measures for correction of the values of the indicators will be proposed. This comparative study can be considered an innovation, as well, in the cross-border area since in the past no other studies of this types were performed between Romania and Hungary. The third chapter will be focused over the application of seven identified common indicators to companies based in the cross-border area. In the last part of the paper these results will be analyzed and presented.

The extension of the European Union with the first “wave†of new members in 2004 and later with the second “wave†of members in 2007 brought new opportunities for the countries in Eastern Europe, being obvious that “effective utilisation of EU support can foster the success of their economic performance†. Financing investment projects proposed by the SMEs can be realized through several financial sources internal and external, from which two of the most common external sources constitute from subsidies-grants and through banking system. One of the most important financing programme present in Romania, available for SMEs is SOP IEC, which awards grants for investments proposed by production companies. This financing program encourages its beneficiaries to combine the European grant with private funds mostly provided through the banking system. The paper analyzed the methodology used in Cost Benefit Analysis and also The ACB-MININD software which is compulsory to be used for the CBA analysis of these investment projects links for the first time elements of analysis used by the European Commission with elements of analysis used by the banking system. In this context the present article tries to analyze how the ACB-MININD software links the main elements of Cost-Benefit analysis such as NPV or IRR with elements of the bankability software which are mainly used by the banking system such as: cash-flow analysis, loan/interest payment and financial sustainability. Also are presented the links between the banking sector and the external financing sector in the field on investment projects. As final conclusions of this paper we will demonstrate the theoretical and practical role of cost-benefit analysis - financial component to select the best applications that will be proposed for funding under the European grant programs and to link them to the banking system in order to ensure a proper co-financing for these investment projects.

This paper will be later used within the Doctoral thesis: "The Mechanism of Financing Investment Projects by Usage of European Structural Funds", which is currently under development at the University Babeș Bolyai Cluj Napoca, Faculty of Economics and Business Management, under the coordination of the prof. univ. dr. Ioan Trenca. An increasing debate is rising recently between the academic community, the business community, the private lending institutions(banks, investment funds, etc.) and the officials of the Romanian Government and of the European Union regarding the proposed method for calculation of the residual value in the European financed investment projects. Several methods of calculation of the Residual Value were taken into consideration and contested by different parties in order to prepare and to submit financial analysis studies for investment projects proposed to be financed within the European Regional Development Fund(ERDF). In this context, the present paper proposes to address the three main methods of calculation of the residual value and later to study its impact over the indicators, especially over the Internal Rate of Return, obtained in the financial analysis for an investment project proposed by a Romanian medium sized company. In order to establish the proper method which should be used for selection and calculation of the residual value previously published studies and official documentations were analyzed. The main methods for calculation of the residual values were identified as being the following: A. the residual market value of fixed assets, as if it were to be sold, B. accounting economic depreciation formula and C. by using the net present value of the cash flows. Based on these methods the research model was elaborated, and using the financial data of the proposed infrastructure investment was created a case study. According to the realized study a pattern was established for proper determination of residual value and for determination of IRR and methods A and C were proposed to be used. This paper tries to analyze a specific problem of the Romanian enterprises which access European funding, so it can be further used to improve the current methodology of the ERDF programme in Romania: Sectorial Operational Programme "Increase of Economic Competitiveness".