International Cooperation Minister Rania el Mashat said on Monday 23 projects were carried out in Egypt as part of the cross-border cooperation program CBC MED from 2014 to 2020.
In a statement, the minister said the program contributes to accelerating the pace of achieving the goals of sustainable development and enhancing the economic growth for the Mediterranean countries, praising the European Union’s funding of the program which is applied in 14 countries at a value of 208 million euros.
The funding represents the largest cross-border cooperation initiative implemented by the European Union to create a more competitive, innovative, inclusive and sustainable Mediterranean region, she added.
She elaborated saying that the European Union launched four new regional projects within the framework of the program to establish and develop business incubators and provide technical and financial support to entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises.
She said the projects launched under the CBC MED program comply with the 17 UN Sustainable Development goals.
She added that the previous phase of the CBC MED program achieved many results and that more than 10 million people benefited from new and advanced services the project offers in addition to training 35,000 people, supporting 344 start-up projects, developing 215 heritage sites, supporting the business of 144 tour operators, producing more than one million kilowatt/ hours of clean energy and bringing 9 Mediterranean ports into the Logistics Improvement Initiative.
She expected that many results will be achieved in the new phase of the program to enhance development efforts by bridging financing gaps, the gender gap, as well as the technological gap.
The four projects will continue for a period of three years with a total budget of about €20m.
They include, among others, the regional EU ENI EBSOMED which aims to raise the efficiency of private and public business support organizations, and create new mechanisms for cooperation.
Source: State Information Service Egypt