Resources of the State budget 2010 for EU funds projects have been absorbed in amount of 99.6%
State budget resources for European Union (EU) funds projects in 2010 have been absorbed in amount of 99.6%, inter alia, additional financing in amount of 100 million lats allocated for EU funds projects in June 2010 has been almost completely absorbed, which shows Latvia’s ability to mobilise its resources and use all possibilities to absorb the financing available for EU funds projects, informed the Ministry of Finance (MoF) as the EU funds Managing Authority.
“Since EU funds activities under which project are being implemented comply with priority directions of Latvia’s strategic development plan, resources allocated in the end of 2010 will give significant incentive for faster economic recovery and more positive micro climate in 2011,” believes the Deputy State Secretary of the MoF on EU funds issues Aleksandrs Antonovs. He also emphasises that all projects to which the financing was allocated were planned in advance and were already partly prepared. Responsible ministries and beneficiaries mobilised themselves and were able to ensure faster payments.
“Also in 2011 a priority goal will be to ensure full use of state budget resources allocated to EU funds, which will be 25% more than in 2010,” said A.Antonovs.
In total, in 2010, ministries paid 505.8 million lats from the state budget resources to project implementers, inter alia, in December 224 million lats. Biggest sums in December were paid by the Ministry of Transport – 54.3 million lats, Ministry of Environment – 46.6 million lats, Ministry of Education and Science – 45 million lats, and former Ministry of Regional Development and Local Government – 41 million lats.
The said sums include also advance payments to projects implementers which were paid for already approved and ready-for-implementation projects. Since the Ministry of Finance previously informed that one of the reasons for insufficient speed of EU funds acquisition is difficulties with receiving loans from credit institutions for EU funds projects, the possibility to pay advance payments from the state budget resources is a positive incentive for launching and successful implementation of projects.
EU funds in programming period 2007-2013
In total, by December 2010 there were EU funds projects approved amounting to 2.4 billion lats or ~75% of total EU funds financing, contracts have been concluded in amount of 2.3 billion lats or 74% of total allocation, but beneficiaries have been paid 928 million lats or ~30% of total allocation for the period. In the programming period 2007-2013 there are 3.18 billion lats of EU funds financing available for Latvia. Latvia can use these resources by the end of 2015. In Latvia, EU funds resources are planned within three directions or operational programmes – Human Resources and Employment, Entrepreneurship and Innovations, Infrastructure and Services.
Information prepared by:
Agnese Beļkeviča
Communication Division of the Ministry of Finance
Phone: 67083938
Agnese.Belkevica@fm.gov.lv
