The Enterprise Support Foundation – ESA Tetovo and the North West Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the Innovation and Technology Development Fund organized a presentation on the Instrument for Co-financing of Innovation Commercial Grants. Participants in this presentation were the Minister of Economy, Kreshnik Bekteshi, Director of FIZHT, Jovan Despotovski and member companies of ECNWM.

Minister Bekteshi emphasized that small and medium enterprises are leaders of all-inclusive economic growth in the Republic of Macedonia and creating productive and sustainable jobs.

“With this support, we want to increase the competitiveness of small and medium-sized companies so that they can cooperate with other companies from home and abroad, respectively to be export-oriented. The ultimate goal of the whole process is the development of society. The development of SMEs in the long term leads to the strengthening of the general economy, “said Minister Bekteshi.

FITR Director Jovan Despotovski mentioned  that FITR will continue to offer domestic free support consulting and technical assistance.

“The Fund is an open state institution. We strive to bring programs, opportunities and criteria closer to all companies in all regions. We have started a process of decentralized access to information, consulting services and technical assistance. Tetovo is one of the first three urban centers to take part in this process. The fact that in these three weeks of call announcement we have about 1000 applications that motivates us to continue working at the same pace. This is at the same time a sign of the trust of companies in the institution and the way we work “

The total amount of funds allocated for this instrument is 5,000,000 euros, of which 3,000,000 euros are provided by the state, while 2,000,000 euros are provided by the World Bank.

Projects that are supported by this instrument are: research and development activities, testing activities, intellectual property protection activities, designs, pilot line development, quality assurance activities, marketing and sales activities.

The call for applications in this project is from 30.03.2019 until 15.05.2019. The government stimulates all who meet the conditions envisaged to apply to develop the country’s economy as a whole.