February 18 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's economy ministry said on Tuesday it has awarded 340 local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with contracts worth over 143 million levs ($79.2 million/73.1 million euro) combined.
The grant funding for the projects is provided by the EU under operational programme Innovations and Competitiveness 2014-2020, the ministry said in a statement.
The SMEs will use the fresh EU funding to buy machines and equipment, and to expand their operations, deputy economy minister Liliya Ivanova said in the statement.
The ministry did not say in which sectors of the economy the beneficiaries operate.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)