The increase in the budget of the “Development of Digital Products and Services” program from €100,000,000 to €145,000,000 was announced by the Ministries of National Economy and Finance and Digital Governance. According to a relevant announcement, the aim is to cover all the approved investment projects, which after the end of the evaluation process now amount to 368.

The “Development of Digital Products and Services” Program is part of the Action “Digital Transformation of SMEs”, which is implemented by the Ministry of Digital Governance and the Information Society, within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan Greece 2.0 with funding from the European Union -NextGenerationEU.

It is worth noting that the great impact that the specific program had on the SME technology market, combined with the high quality investment plans that were submitted, prove its perfect design and its adaptation to the real needs of the market.

Investment plans

Through the specific Program, investment projects of Small and Medium Enterprises are strengthened for the development of new products and services, which fall into the IT and communications sectors, with the aim of:

– the strengthening of healthy entrepreneurship with the appropriate IT utilization,

– the strengthening of the IT sector, in terms of competitiveness and extroversion,

-the creation of new value-added digital products and services with a strong commercial perspective and viability.

Empowerment of entrepreneurship

The Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitris Papastergiou, said: “Strengthening the digital maturity of small and medium-sized enterprises operating in a wide range of sectors of the economy has added value in strengthening entrepreneurship, as they are the backbone of our economy. For this reason, having in our hands a program well designed by the Information Society in relation to the real needs of the market and identifying the impact it had in the specific sector, we worked to increase the budget and manage to cover all the investment projects resulting from the evaluation process”.

New digital products

The Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance, Nikos Papathanasis, emphasized: “Through the Recovery Fund, we support SMEs in the IT and communications sectors, to develop new digital products and services that will be sustainable, competitive in the Greek and international market. More broadly, in the Recovery and Resilience Fund, of the 536 investment projects that have been submitted, 320 – with a budget of 4.76 billion euros – and 113 of the 240 contracted loans – with a budget of 1.33 billion. euro- concern SMEs.

Financing

In any case, the expansion of financing and the wider development of SMEs is a  Government priority. This is evidenced, among other things, by the more than 44 thousand new loans to SMEs given by the Hellenic Development Bank, the invitations for the establishment and support of new SMEs in the regions of Western Macedonia and Megalopolis – a budget of 20 million euros – and for the support of existing SMEs -budget of 30 million euros- in the same areas, the new actions to support the establishment and operation of new SMEs throughout the country – budget of 190 million euros – and the support of the establishment and operation of new SME tourism businesses – budget of 160 million. euros- within the framework of the “Competitiveness” Program of the NSRF 2021-2027. And of course, the allocation of 300 million euros for the digital transformation of SMEs through the same Program.

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