◗ GRANT PROGRAMM ◖

EU and UNDP Joint Initiative: “EU Innovative Action for Private Sector Competitiveness in Georgia” is announcing a call for proposals for the grant program: Strategic Investments for Growth for Companies in The Packaging Supply Chain.

The Call for Proposals aims at inviting interested companies that need co-financing to improve their business operations in order to increase sales and create more jobs, to improve the product quality or production processes, and to create and update value-added products or services. The project hopes that this funding will help the beneficiary companies to increase their revenues, to create high-paying jobs, to introduce innovative products, services or manufacturing processes, and to attract new investment.

Target areas of the grant-investment projects are:

• Upgrading and modernizing the production capacities and processes - purchase/upgrade of machinery, improve and reengineer the production and business processes, improve and introduce industrial innovations and technologies;
• Increasing the value added to goods or services - improve the quality of the produced output and service, innovation of goods or services, upgrade a product, or introduce a new product;
• Making qualitative changes in the production/service processes – introduce international quality standards and facilitate the certification process to improve the product quality, product safety, standards of safety and energy efficiency;
• Recycling of waste and secondary raw materials – to improve or introduce recycling  of waste and secondary products, carry out environmental measures and facilitate the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility.

Grant co-financing per beneficiary will be no less than USD 5,000 (equivalent in GEL) and no more than USD 50,000 (equivalent in GEL), which does not exceed 70% of the total eligible project costs submitted by the beneficiary.

---

Any person is eligible to participate in the program if s/he meets the following criteria:

• Field of activity: an organization operating at any level of the packaging supply chain, such as a producer and supplier of packaging raw materials, packaging producer or service provider, industrial user of packaging (production of food/beverage products and other goods), recyclers of packaging raw materials and waste, also other businesses providing support activities (printing, logistics, marketing, design, etc.) whose economic activities are related to the production, supply, logistics, usage, recovery, or further management, and related services of any kind of packaging material (packaging raw material, packaging or finished goods).
• Co-participation: Grants will cover 70% of the total eligible costs of a given investment project (grant), while 30% of the grantee’s contribution will be made in cash.
• Geographic coverage of ​​the program: The geographical area of ​​the program is not limited across the country; however, the enterprise must have economic ties with Imereti and/or Kakheti region, which means that enterprises must purchase raw materials and/or produce/sell goods in or from these regions.
• Sole traders and legal entities registered at the National Agency of Public Registry are eligible to participate in the program.
• The beneficiary should own and/or lease real estate, selected for the project, with the right to construction, which is to be registered with the LEPL National Agency of Public Registry (the remaining lease/construction period must be at least 3 years from the date of signing the co-financing agreement).
• The beneficiary’s immovable property should be free of attachment and/or mortgage (only commercial bank mortgages are allowed).
• The beneficiary should not have arrears to the state budget and/or the LEPL “Revenue Service”.
• If the potential beneficiary is a beneficiary of any project/program implemented by the UNDP, s/he must not have violated the terms of the program/project at the time of application.
• Is a member of PMAG Packaging Cluster or intends to join before signing the grant agreement.

Application deadline is April 23, 2021. Completed initial applications must be submitted online (together with the documents listed under Stage 1. It is preferred to send the application in a PDF format) to the following e-mail address: grants@pmag.ge . Please indicate “Grant Proposal” in the subject field. The applicant is allowed to submit several initial applications; however, only one application will be selected and financed.

You can email any inquiries about this request until April 15, 2021 to the address: grants@pmag.ge.

Stage 1 - Receipt of initial applications and administrative review

• Filled-out initial grant application form;
• Copy of an ID card/passport of a potential beneficiary/eligible person;
• Excerpt from the registry of entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurial (non-commercial) legal entities;

Stage 2 - Qualitative and technical evaluation of the project

• Completed full grant application form;

Stage 3 - Project selection, implementation and monitoring

Note: The order of submission of additional support documents for the grant application is determined by the granting organization at different stages of project implementation, of which the applicant will be notified.

The “EU Innovative Action for Private Sector Competitiveness in Georgia” is a joint initiative of the European Union and four UN Agencies – United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and International Organization for Migration (IOM). This initiative responds to the objectives set out in the Annual Action Programme 2017 for Economic and Business Development in Georgia, and supports one of the 3 components of the Programme: Enhancing Greater Business Sophistication.

---