Measures of the Republic of Serbia IPARD II Programme Presented in Regional Chambers of Commerce

In the period January – March 2018, in cooperation with the Serbian Chamber of Commerce Sector for agriculture, the UNDP Project “Reducing Barriers to Accelerate the Development of Biomass Markets in Serbia” organized 15 lectures held at regional chambers of commerce on the topic “Presentation of the Republic of Serbia IPARD II Programme”. The lecturers were: Aleksandar Bogunović, Secretary of the SCC Association for plant production, and representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Water Management: Zoran Janjatović, Assistant minister of agriculture, Branislav Veljković, and Slobodan Živanović.

The EU IPARD II Programme at the amount of 175 million EUR is an instrument for pre-accession assistance in the area of rural development for the programme period from 2014 to 2020. It is intended for promotion of competitiveness to reach European standards (in the area of hygiene, food safety, veterinarian medicine, and environmental protection, as well as diversification of rural economy).The programme has been approved by the EU and Republic of Serbia, and has been implemented through the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection, Directorate for Agrarian Payments. The Programme may be used for support and establishment of subcontractor groups, rural infrastructure, training, including advisory services, agro-environmental schemes, as well as local initiatives.

Through this Programme, candidate states for membership in the EU prepare themselves to use funds from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). This is the first assistance of the kind intended directly for beneficiaries, that is, agricultural producers – legal and natural entities. So far, two measures from the programme have been accredited: Measure 1, which relates to primary agricultural production, and Measure 3, which relates to agro-product processing. By the end of this year, the Ministry also plans to accredit Measure 7 – rural tourism. So far, two invitations for Measure 1 of the Programme have been published: Public invitation for investments in real assets of agricultural holdings, i.e. purchase of new equipment and machines, and Public invitation for purchase of new tractors. Upon the invitations, some 100, i.e. 300 applications were received respectively, and are currently in the first stage of verification. The first invitation for Measure 3 is expected to be published in the second half of March; it will relate to purchase of equipment. Competitions for construction and refurbishment of facilities for both measures will be published in the course of summer.

All elements of the Programme: conditions, deadlines, limitations, necessary documents, procedures, as well as the manner in which the overall process is controlled were presented at the lecture into detail.

In the second part of the presentation, UNDP representatives Dragan Stefanović, Vesna Gajić, and Lazar Divjak presented the UNDP Project “Reducing Barriers to Accelerate the Development of Biomass Markets in Serbia” which is financed by the Global Environment Fund and implemented by UNDP, Ministry of Mining and Energy, and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Water Management. A film was shown on the topic of development of biogas markets and construction of biogas plants in Serbia. Construction of biogas plants and plants using renewable energy sources comprise measures which will be supported by the IPARD Programme; thus, those who attended the UNDP Project presentation could get information on utilization of biomass in production of electric power in agricultural holdings.

The presentations were held in the following sequence:

Presentation

IPARD II

IPARD II

LESKOVAC 1

LESKOVAC 2

NIS 1

NIS 2

SREMSKA MITROVICA 1

SREMSKA MITROVICA 2

SREMSKA MITROVICA 3

SREMSKA MITROVICA 4

SREMSKA MITROVICA 5