TIRANA (Albania), October 3 (SeeNews) – Albania’s agricultural and rural development agency said it has opened the second call for applications for funding under the EU-backed Instrument for Pre-accession for Rural Development (IPARD II) programme.
The second call will make available to applicants a total of 57.68 million euro ($63.1 million) of funding, as the deadline for submitting applications is December 16, the agency said in a statement earlier this week.
The programme will cover three areas: investments in physical assets of agricultural holdings with a total budget of 24.05 million euro, investments in processing and marketing of agriculture products with a budget of 22.75 million euro and investment in farm diversification and business development with a total budget of 10.87 million euro.
The EU will provide 71 million euro, while the Albanian government will contribute 23 million euro to the programme that will offer direct financial assistance to farmers and will support rural development, the European Commission delegation has said.
IPARD aims to provide assistance for the implementation of the EU's common policy in agriculture and to contribute to the sustainable adaptation of the agricultural sector and rural areas in the candidate country.
Albania became a candidate country for EU membership in June 2014 and is expecting to open accession talks later this year.
($=0.9139 euro)