The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), through the Kosovo Investment and Enterprise Support Agency (KIESA), has organized an information conference on launching the “Matching Grants Program (MGP) “, funded by the World Bank which aims to co-finance with Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and business associations for standardization / certification of products and business development services.
At the opening of this conference, Minister of Trade and Industry Endrit Shala initially emphasized that the Government of Kosovo has received funding from the World Bank Group for the Competitiveness and Export Readiness Program (CERP) for Export and that CERP Subcomponent 1.2 foresees the support of businesses to improve product quality and readiness for export, including 2.3 million EUR funding for the Matching Grants Program (MGP).
He announced that the purpose of this program is to co-finance micro, small and medium enterprises with export potential for certification and product standards, as well as access to business development and training services.
This sub-component of the CERP project, according to Minister Shala, will support the Kosovo Investment and Enterprise Support Agency (KIESA), operating within the Ministry of Trade and Industry, to implement this program.
Minister Shala also spoke about the effect of these grants in the future, by which, companies will be assisted in market growth, export growth and new product development as well as in human capacity building, influencing in their professionalism. This funding will serve a lot for companies in ISO standards, where they will lower the cost of businesses and will have an effect on improving the quality of security.” ISO standards also help companies to access new markets by ensuring compatibility of products and services," said Minister Shala.
On this occasion, he thanked all the donors, enabling the development of our companies to be up to date and to have a sustainable development.
In the end, Minister Shala stressed that he believes our businesses will use this tremendous opportunity to take advantage of the opportunities of this grant to develop and be competitive even in European Union markets.
