site.btaSome 900 Companies Apply for Recovery and Resilience Plan Grants in Support of Circular Economy

Nearly 900 Bulgarian companies have applied for the National Recovery and Resilience Plan measure to support the transition to a circular economy, before the deadline for applying ended on Tuesday. The requested support for setting up green industries totals over BGN 345 million or almost double the measure budget of BGN 180 million.

The Minister of Innovation and Growth, Milena Stoycheva, said that the companies' interest in the measure shows that they need support in their efforts to be more environmentally friendly and use less single-use plastic products.

Micro, small, medium and large enterprises from the manufacturing industry applied for the measure. The minimum grant they could apply for was BGN 70,000. The maximum was differentiated according to the size of the companies: up to BGN 350,000 for micro, BGN 550,000 for small, BGN 750,000 for medium and up to BGN 1 million for large. The co-financing is from 25% to 50%, depending on the category of the company and the location of the project.

Approved companies will be able to purchase machinery, equipment or software to limit the negative impact of their activities on the environment. The evaluation of the project proposals is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The procedure supports investments to reduce waste and the use of plastic products, to introduce alternative raw materials, including materials of organic origin, to improve environmental standards, etc.