STA, February 19 – The Economic Development and Technology Ministry will make available a total of EUR 265.9m in 29 public calls this year. The ministry places special attention to research and development and only recently, EUR 28m have been distributed for RD&I and another EUR 30m will be made available in May.
There are EUR 839m EU funds available to the Ministry in the 2014-2020 period. EUR 101m have been distributed in 2016 and EUR 406m last year.
This year, the ministry wants to reach 83% of the funds allotted for the period, and aims to distribute EUR 145.6m by the end of June and EUR 120.3m in the second half of the year.
"I'm happy that we've built a well-oiled machine," Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek said on Tuesday, referring to the ministry's mechanism to dispense the funds.
Počivalšek noted while presenting to the press in Maribor the Ministry's progress in the drawing of EU funds that a special Development Funds Office had been set up last year.
State Secretary Aleš Cantarutti said that the ministry was focusing on balancing regional development, boosting industry, digitalisation and internationalisation.
Nearly EUR 140m will go into regional development this year, including for tourism capacities in less-developed areas. EUR 75m will go into entrepreneurship, technology and development, and EUR 21m for internationalisation; EUR 16m for the wood industry and EUR 13m for tourism.
In terms of location, the biggest chunk of the funds approved last year went to companies in central Slovenia, said Cantarutti. However, the most developed part of the country was followed by the Podravje and Pomurje regions, both problematic areas, said Cantarutti.
"The problem of the east is that its absorption capacity is often too low," the state secretary said about the EU funds drawing potential. "But a gradual progress is being made and in general, the majority of the funds end up in this part of the country."
