Bulgarian SMEs to get additional 26.6 mln euro in EU funding to tackle Covid-19 crisis - econ min
Bulgaria will direct an additional 52 million levs ($31.4 million/26.6 million euro) of EU funding to local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to help them cope with liquidity issues stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, the economy ministry said.
Due to increased interest of applicants, the budget of the government's scheme for support to SMEs under EU's operational programme Innovations and Competitiveness will be increased to 225 million levs from 173 million levs, the economy ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The managing authority of the operational programme has taken steps to change the conditions for applying for support under the programme, thus giving the right to companies that had been originally rejected, to have their documents considered again, starting in October, the ministry said.
After considering the applications of over 27,000 candidates, the managing authority of operational programme Innovations and Competitiveness decided that 21,173 firms are eligible to receive grants of 3,000 levs to 10,000 levs.