The Development Agency of Serbia has announced a public call for projects – 130 million dinars is available to support the small and medium-sized enterprise sector

The Development Agency of Serbia (RAS) has issued a public call for participation in the Business Institutional Infrastructure Support Program, intended for the small and medium-sized enterprise sector. This is one of 33 programs under the Government of Serbia’s “Year of Entrepreneurship” program. Clusters, business incubators, science and technology parks, accredited regional development agencies, associations, cooperatives, chambers of commerce, as well as scientific research organizations, institutes and faculties are eligible to submit projects. Each potential beneficiary may submit multiple projects, independently and/or as a partner in a consortium.

The total budget for the Program is 130.000.000 dinars. Available funds are awarded per project as co-financing of up to 50% of the project costs, excluding VAT. Projects will be approved for amounts ranging from 500.000 to 5.000.000 dinars, successively until all funds have been spent, no later than 31.10.2016.

The program consists of two components: the first is intended to bring businesses together and enable them to act jointly, while the second is focused more on improving the services offered to their users by support institutions. Project activities eligible for co-financing by the Development Agency of Serbia (RAS) are: under Component 1 - development of a joint product and/or development of technological processes and/or purchase of shared equipment and/or infrastructure upgrades for shared facilities; and optionally, establishing new cooperation mechanisms among MSMEs that contribute to increased competitiveness; creating value chains to increase the level of product finishing, using predominantly domestic raw materials; creating supplier chains to establish business cooperation between large buyers and MSMEs; expanding the capacity of existing business incubators or establishing new ones, and optionally improving the business incubation model; upgrading the infrastructure capacity of existing science and technology parks, and optionally improving their support model; implementing research and development results from scientific research organizations in MSMEs;

Under Component 2 - Developing new and/or improving existing services offered by the Beneficiary to enhance the competitiveness of MSMEs and entrepreneurs and delivering these services to end users; developing support services for innovative MSMEs and delivering them to end users; establishing new cooperation mechanisms among MSMEs that contribute to increased competitiveness; improving the business incubation model; improving the support model provided by science and technology parks; promoting entrepreneurship and examples of good practice; preparing analyses and conducting research in cooperation with scientific research organizations and MSMEs on specific projects aimed at increasing MSME competitiveness.

The instructions and all accompanying forms are available electronically on the website    www.ras.gov.rs, as well as on the website    www.godinapreduzetnistva.rs.