More companies developed by migrants to receive grants for business in Moldova

Chisinau, 27 October /MOLDPRES/ - Forty one companies led by migrants or their first-degree relatives will access non-refundable financing worth up to 250,000 lei for starting and developing a business.   

The Organization for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises Sector Development (ODIMM) today signed contracts on grant with winner enterprises within the Programme on Attraction of Remittances into the Economy (PARE 1+1), which will create over 130 jobs in rural areas and will bring investments amounting to more than 25 million lei to the economy.  

„Despite the challenges triggered by the COVID-19 crisis, I am happy to find out that the number of people interested in starting their own business is on the rise. I urge our citizens, who returned home on the period of the pandemic, to be courageous and implement their business ideas through the PARE 1+1 Programme,’’ the secretary general of the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry, Lilia Palii, said at the event.    

For her part, the ODIMM director general, Iulia Costin, encouraged entrepreneurs to be inventive and always look for new opportunities, in order to manage to develop successful businesses. ‘’Each business financed through the PARE 1+1 Programme means a family of migrants returned home. We are glad that we manage to contribute both to the growth of the national economy and the society’s reunion. At the same time, the business environment from Moldova becomes more prosperous and the infrastructure develops, especially in regions. By this means, we encourage all entrepreneurs who have a business or a business idea to implement it and we assure them of our every support on behalf of ODIMM,’’ Iulia Costin said.    

The European Union financially backs the PARE 1+1 governmental programme. Twenty out of the 41 businesses are financed with EU funds.  

According to a representative of the European Union Delegation to Moldova, Gintautas Baranauskas, the tangible results achieved with the European support for the sector of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain to be success stories. ‘’Presently, there are almost 20 various programmes which provide subsidies, loans and services of developing the businesses made available to entrepreneurs from this country. Nevertheless, I would like to stress that additional efforts are needed, in order to provide conditions of fair competition for SMEs.’’   

The grants’ beneficiaries will develop businesses in such sectors as: growing ostriches, quails, cattle, manufacture of briquettes and fodder for animals, bread products and pastes, production of cereals and cereal flakes, chocolate sweets and nuts, fabrication of metal machines and tools. At the same time, ten businesses are from the field of providing services: leisure and tourism, constructions, transport, maintenance and setting sewerage and aqueduct systems, as well as stomatology.        

„PARE 1+1 is a programme which has been implemented by ODIMM in the last ten years; it is financed from the state budget and supplemented from European Union funds. So far, 3,053 people have been registered and 2,503 beneficiaries have been trained at the programme. The PARE 1+1 facilitated the access to non-refundable financing worth 338.85 million lei for 1,650 enterprises from the state budget and supplemented from European Union funds through the Support to SMEs in Rural Areas Project.   

Photo: ODIMM