Today, the Agency for Financial Support of the Agriculture and Rural Development made a payment for additional direct payments for grapes produced and delivered grape in registered wine production facilities in the Republic of North Macedonia.

Beneficiaries of this sub-measure are agricultural holdings that have vine planted areas vines and production of wine grapes from the 2022 harvest, which were delivered to registered wine production facilities in the Republic of North Macedonia or were processed for the needs of their own processing facilities registered for production of wine in the Republic of North Macedonia. The amount of additional direct payments is MKD 2 per kilogram.

After the administrative processing of the applications and checking the fulfillment of the criteria from the Decree on detail criteria, the Beneficiaries of funds, the maximum amounts and the method of direct payments, the Agency made a payment to 5851 Beneficiaries thereby transferring  to whose accounts 199.4 million denars.

"The support for grape growers and wine production is a top priority of the Government and the institutions that create and implement measures for the development of agriculture. This is one of the sectors that every year records an increase in production and most importantly - an increase in the export of grapes as a basic product but also wine as a product with added value for which we are widely recognized all over the world" - pointed out the director Nikica Bachovski.

The support for Macedonian grape growers in the current 2023, including this payment amounts to nearly 800 million denars - direct support, i.e. state subsidy for depreciation of the input costs in production. Furthermore, the viticulture and wine sector is a beneficiary of the measure for subsidized fuel for agricultural machinery, i.e. green oil, as well as programs for rural development and measures for young farmers, rural women, purchase of tractors, as well as the European program for agriculture and rural development - IPARD 2.