Skopje, 18 August 2021 (MIA) – Business aiming to develop an innovative product, service or process, alone or together with another business or research facility, can apply through October 15 to the latest public call issued by the Fund for Innovation and Technology Development (FITD). The public call stands at EUR 8 million intended for co-financed grants for commercialization of innovations and only for new users of FITD instruments. The application process takes place online and projects are eligible to get up to Mden 20 million support. Deputy PM for Economic Affairs Fatmir Bytyqi and FITD director Kosta Petrov told a press conference on Wednesday that this is the FITD’s largest public call for 2021 according to the amount of funding secured. It also introduces a novelty in the refund mechanism – if the user delivers proof that an investor has put in at least 50% of the amount of funding granted by the Fund, it will be exempted from paying royalties. Bytyqi and Petrov stressed that this is the FITD’s ninth public call, which proves that the institution supports creative and innovative projects started by young people and startup businesses, as well as micro and small enterprises that plan to grow and develop. “I’d like to encourage the business community and young people with project ideas to apply to the public call. It presents a great opportunity to speed up the realization of your ideas, promote production, increase your product range, productivity and sales, thus enhancing the economic climate in the country,” Bytyqi said. He reiterated that in the past three years, a total of 198 projects have been backed through instruments for commercialization and improvement of innovations, which is 30% of the total number of projects. EUR 28 million have been allocated for their realization. “This means that we invest in innovations, ideas, digitalization and increased productivity and competitiveness. Last year amid the crisis, FITD continued to issue public calls, supporting in 2020 alone a total of 229 projects worth a total of EUR 17.7 million,” the Deputy PM noted, underlining that the latest public call will up the amount of FITD-backed projects and businesses to over 640. Petrov presented at the briefing public call details, which are also available on FITD’s website. “Funding will be granted to projects with a clear commercialization goal that are in the prototype and up to premarket phase. Some of the activities that we support include: research and development, testing, intellectual property protection, etc. The full list is available on FITD’s website,” Petrov said, stressing that FITD and the government are actively working on creation of new jobs in the private sector as evident from funding benefits. According to him, the instrument will provide funding up to Mden 20 million: up to 70% of the total project budget for enterprises with less than 50 employees and annual revenue of less than EUR 2 million in the past two years and up to 60% of the total project budget for enterprises with 50-250 employees and annual revenue of EUR 2-10 million. Aside from financial support, FITD presents businesses that apply to the public call with opportunities for additional funding through the following banks: Stopanska, Tutunska, Sparkasse, ProCredit, UNIBank and SilkRoad. Moreover, businesses can make use of USD 10,000, USD 25,000 and USD 100,000 loans available through the Amazon Web Services cloud platform. Implementation of the projects eligible for funding is limited to 24 months. “The evaluation of proposals will take place in two stages: first – preselection, conducted by three domestic expects per project, two foreign experts from sectors linked to the evaluation criteria and one person from the sector of the proposed project, and second - selection, conducted by the committee for approving investments, which makes the final decision. In regard for the size of the project team, at least one of its members must come from the marketing and sales sector,” the FITD head stressed. The public call will be open until 2 pm on October 15.