March 31 (SeeNews) - North Macedonia's government said it will ask the European Commission (EC) to temporarily repurpose unspent funds from the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) to help it cope with the coronavirus crisis.
The ministry of finance will request from the EC to enable the country to temporarily reallocate the unspent IPA funds within the TAIB 2009, TAIB 2010, TAIB 2011 programmes and the IPA components III, IV and V, the government said in a statement on Monday.
The European Union earlier this month committed to providing up to 66 million euro ($72.57 million) to North Macedonia to help the country fight the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on the economy.
North Macedonia's finance minister also said that the country plans to borrow almost 600 million euro to ensure budget liquidity and maintain employment during the coronavirus crisis.
The country last week started the implementation of a scheme to provide nearly 12 million euro worth of zero-interest loans to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the coronavirus.
($ = 0.909454 euro)