The Director of the IPARD Agency, Mr. Nikica Bachovski, today has visited the Winery “Vardarska Dolina” in the village Kurija - Negotino.

This Winery is a successful beneficiary of the IPARD program and the Measure for investment in physical assets concerning processing and marketing of agricultural and fishery products.

This Winery was founded in 2000 with a capacity of over 800,000 bottles of quality wine from the variety of Chardonnay, Traminec, Temjanika, Vranec, Pinot Noir, Merlot and other varieties.

The winery provides the raw material for wine production from its own plantations as well as through cooperation with local farmers - grape producers.

As an eligible applicant, the winery applied for a Call from the IPARD Programme for investment support which includes construction works for the extension of the winery in v.Kuria, procurement of equipment and general costs for consulting services and preparation of the basic project.

After the administrative evaluation of the application, the Agency and the Winery Vardarska Dolina have signed Contract for financial support, which was implemented by the applicant and reimbursed by the Agency, by which the approved investment was co-financed by the IPARD fund with support of 23.8 million denars.

"In the past 6 years since the implementation of the IPARD II Programme, the statistics and the numbers, but also the investments like this as we can see for ourselves, speak strongly about the influence of the European Union Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance for Agriculture and Rural Development in the development of agriculture and the processing industry. Over 60 million euros were made available in the past period for the modernization of the entire sector, and more than 2300 Beneficiaries had the opportunity to receive the right to financial support from the Agency. To our own satisfaction, and I believe to all potential Applicants and Beneficiaries, the Agency very soon will announce the first public calls from the IPARD III Programme for which the European Commission has allocated a budget of 96 million euros," said the Director Bachovski.

We inform all interested applicants that underway is the last Public Call from IPARD II, where the processors can apply for new processing equipment as well as for investments in renewable energy sources for their own needs. For this call have been allocated 8.8 million euros for co-financing of investments up to 50% of the total eligible costs, and the application deadline is September 18, 2023.