Skopje, 29 July 2022 (MIA) - Contracts for financial assistance will be signed with 280 companies that are entering an investment cycle of approximately €145 million and will create more than 3,700 jobs. Namely it relates to the companies that invested around €50 million and created over 1,500 new jobs in 2021. The state aid will be paid for the first time in two tranches thus helping the companies preserve their liquidity and companies that invest in less developed planning regions will receive a larger percentage of the support. This year, more than 70 percent of the companies are outside the most developed Skopje region, and there are 22 companies that have applied for financial support for research and development. “Our companies have once again shown how active they are and in these difficult times invest in improving their competitiveness, their products and introducing new production lines,” Deputy PM for Economic Affairs Fatmir Bytyqi told Friday’s press conference. A total of 633 contracts have been concluded through the Law on Financial Support of Investments over the past five years. Some of the contracts, around 20, have been terminated due to non-fulfilment of obligations. “Contracts for financial support, when they are concluded, have contractual obligations. Each investment has an investment cycle term of several years and a percentage of the fulfilled obligations. We monitor all of them and act accordingly. There are investors who, due to certain reasons, and one of the reasons may be Covid-19, stop their investments and ask for the termination of the contract, and no penalties are included there. There are 15 contracts in which we have requested a unilateral termination from our side because the investor failed to realize part of the investment,” Bytyqi said. Thanks to the simplified criteria and the expansion of the types of financial assistance, contracts are being signed with 280 companies today, Economy Minister of Economy Kreshnik Bekteshi said. “From 2018 until today, more than €50 million have been given only through the Law on Financial Support of Investments,” Bekteshi said, adding that currently, the new smart specialization strategy is being developed on the basis of matching smart specialization priorities in high valued added sectors.