SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), January 10 (SeeNews) – The European Union will make available some 15 million euro ($18 million) to support small and medium companies in Bosnia in 2018 in sectors such as tourism, food industry, wood and metal processing, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said on Wednesday.
Over the past year and a half, the EBRD and the EU have provided 15.7 million euro in loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bosnia under a two-year programme aimed to increase the competitiveness of SMEs in the country, the EBRD said in a statement.
The participants are also expected to receive more than 4 million euro in grants from EU funds over the next six months, the lender noted.
"We are pleased with the success of the programme and grateful for the EU’s continuous support. We are complementary in our goals and our approach and working together allows us to make a real impact on the development of the economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina," Ian Brown, EBRD head of office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, commented.
The European Union has established a long-lasting cooperation with the EBRD in the implementation of SME support programmes in Bosnia and Herzegovina by complementing EBRD loan funding with grants coming from IPA, the Instrument for Pre-Accession.
The current support from the EBRD and the EU is oriented towards increasing the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises on local, regional and European markets through the harmonisation with EU directives and standards in the fields of occupational health and safety, environmental protection and product safety and quality.
As many as 58 projects have been financed by the EBRD credit line so far, 44 of which have already been finalised and verified, while five projects are yet to be verified over the next two months. The financed projects are in the fields of wood processing industry (22%), metal processing industry (12%) and food industry (10%).
Bileca-based dairy Padjeni is one of the Bosnian companies that achieved the harmonisation with EU directives and its products have been available on the EU market since 2016. The EBRD/EU project motivated the company to complete an investment of 1.6 million marka ($981,200/818,100) this year, the EBRD said.
"We completed a facility with the capacity to process nearly 60,000 liters of milk a day into 30 different products. As part of the project, we managed to purchase a yoghurt bottle filling machine, an electric generating unit and the enlargement of our production hall facility", the company's general manager, Nenad Vukoje, said.
Since the start of its operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EBRD has invested more than 2 billion euro in 146 projects in the country.
The European Union has invested more than 50 million euro in small and medium-sized enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the past 15 years.
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