The Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Pedro Cilínio, announced an increase of 10 percentage points to 23% in the advance of the recovery and resilience plan (PRR) funds, to strengthen the implementation of the projects.
“We are going to strengthen the levels of advances and payments in the calendars [mobilizadoras do PRR]. One of the measures we are taking is to increase the advance level by another 10 percentage points, so that all agendas have an additional volume of resources to start their investments, for example.”said the official in statements to journalists on the sidelines of a visit to Portuguese companies present at the MICAM shoe fair in Milan.
Noting that the executive intends to “finalize the negotiation process and hire the 53 agendas at very short notice”, Pedro Cilínio explained: “Under the PRR we have an advance rule of 13% and, with a negotiation with the colleague in terms of planning and with the structure of the mission to recover Portugal, we identified the opportunity to increase by 10 percentage points the level of initial progress that diaries can receive”.
According to the Secretary of State, this reinforcement “will have to happen in two moments for reasons of treasury management”, justifying: “Because initially we will receive 13% and what we can do is apply that 13% and go get a new tranche forward to deliver to the companies”.
According to Pedro Cilínio, “In general, this allows a scheme to hold 23% of the money from the PRR within a period of three months after contracting, to give the execution power to these projects, which is very important”.
“In short, we want companies to continue to innovate, to continue to focus on sustainability and, of course, we want funds to be alongside companies on this path,” he emphasized.
As for the disbursement of support for internationalization, the Secretary of State referred that these are “currently being evaluated”: “The tender that closed at the end of January has an evaluation period that ends at the beginning of May and therefore, if approved, the support will be paid,” said he.
Claiming that “the projects that have come in will have the approval of these values, which meet the conditions, but that their award depends on a competitive process currently being evaluated by the AICEP [Agência para o Investimento e Comércio Externo de Portugal]the official claimed: “Right now we have a perspective of total normality. Evaluations are ongoing and Compete and AICEP have worked together to obtain initial results. Incidentally, the first competition in 2030 with announced results will certainly be this one”.
On support for decarbonising the industry, he acknowledged that there is “a delay” – “the notification should have been completed by mid-December”, he admitted – but assured that the executive is “working with universities to capacity building”. evaluation in the short term” and manage to “complete the evaluations by the end of March”.
Pedro Cilínio also noted that the ANI management team is being “strengthened” following the departure of its president, Joana Mendonça, at the beginning of the month, who believes it will not “damage the institution’s performance”: “ANI has itself made a very strong effort to restore the implementation of its support and this effort will continue,” he said.
Pedro Cilínio assured that “the government will continue to invest in what is innovation in companies”, Pedro Cilínio stated that the next productive innovation competition under Portugal 2030 “will open very soon, with significant amounts of money”, and stressed the importance of support, through PRR projects, for “the transition of companies to the digital economy, automation and sustainability”.
Source: DN
