The promotion was opened by the Director of the Regional Agency for Development and European Integration of Belgrade (RADEI), Snezana Radinović and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Belgrade (PKB), Svetozar Krstic.

Ms. Radinovic stressed the importance of COSME for the development of the Belgrade region as well as readiness of the Agency to assist all interested parties to apply.

At the presentation of the program, it was stressed that COSME runs from 2014 to 2020 and has a budget of 2.3 billion Euros. These funds are just the basics guarantee schemes in which they are involved commercial banks with their funding sources, so it is expected that, in this way, over the next five years, in the 330,000 small and medium-sized enterprises it will be injected a total of 21 billion Euros and it will create more than a million new jobs.

The average amount of the guaranteed loan is 65,000 Euros, and a special advantage is, thanks to the guarantees, that entrepreneurs who could not obtain commercial loans will be able to use it, said the coordinator for the COSME program in Serbia, Milica Zatezalo from the Ministry of Economy. She said that in the COSME program, which is implemented by the European Commission through the European Agency for SMEs and the European Investment Fund, Serbia is included as the sixth country outside the European Union and added that Serbia waited two years to become a member of COSME.

Marko Kovačević of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce presented the importance of the Enterprise Europe Network for finding partners which are a key element for the use of the program. The Serbian SMEs and entrepreneurs who want to apply for these funds, will be able to do so only through their business and professional associations, clusters, associations or organizations, because only to them banks will send open calls. Therefore, the European network is the best tool for successful finding a partner but also an excellent opportunity to study the possibilities of potential partners but also rivals in the competition for the COSME funds.

Ljiljana Marković and Nikola Vujinović from the Regional Agency for Development and European Integration of Belgrade have announced a workshop on the program and how to apply on behalf of the Belgrade region implement the Regional Agency for Development and European Integration Belgrade. Ms. Markovic pointed to the positive experience of RADEI regarding EU funds, while Nikola Vujinović showed attendees some characteristic parts of the preparation of projects for COSME and stressed the great importance of timely preparation and cooperation of all concerned with RADEI.