EU allocates funds for five cities in Turkey’s Black Sea region

BBC Monitoring Europe, March 20, 2007 Tuesday

Source: Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in English 20 Mar 07

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and local governments in five Anatolian cities in Blacksea region of Turkey will receive 24 million euro grant within the framework of ‘TR 90 Regional Development Programme’.

Sources told A.A that, of the 24 million euro grant to be allocated to Blacksea cities of Artvin, Giresun, Gumushane, Ordu, Rize and Trabzon, 18 million will be funded by European Union (EU) and the rest by Turkey.

The project that will be carried out under three headings – SMEs, tourism & environment, and local development – is planned to start in one month time. Local administrations will carry out projects in the field of tourism & environment. Grants under local development initiative chapter will be available for NGOs.

SMEs will be able to use grants up to 100,000 euro.

State Planning Organization is expected to make a call for project proposals following the preparation of application guidelines; 5.6 million euro of the grants will be allocated for local development initiatives, of which 4.2 million will be provided by EU. SMEs and tourism & environment infrastructure projects will each get a total amount of 9.2 million euros, 6.9 of which is to be financed by the EU.