The Regional Government of the Azores, through the Regional Secretariat for Economy, reexamined the Azorean Products Promotion Support System in order to extend to Pico island the system created for the islands of Santa Maria, Graciosa, São Jorge, Flores and Corvo.

In accordance with the changes now published, the enterprises headquartered in Pico island now benefit from support for selling local products to the other Azorean islands, as well as from expense contributions up to 90%. The total support amount was also increased to 200.000€ (Two Hundred Thousand Euros) for a three year period.

According to the Regional Secretary for Economy, Vasco Cordeiro, “This decision is the fulfillment of another promise of the Azorean Government to the enterprisers of Pico island”, as well as “a stimulus to the great potential of the agriculture and industrial diversified production of that island, which creates high quality products, such as wine, meat, cheese, honey, aguardente and other liqueurs”.

The Azorean Products Promotion Support System tries to maintain the quality and specificities of the Azorean products, by stimulating the companies located on the islands where enterprises are more fragile, by contributing to the reduction of their structural disadvantages and by promoting the reinforcement of economical cohesion.

Consequently, the applications to this programme have been significantly increasing for the last few years. Therefore, the amounts attributed to the candidate companies were 301 thousand Euros, in 2007, 478 thousand Euros, in 2008, and 576 thousand Euros in 2009. Regarding 2010, and only in the first semester of this year, the support attributed already reached the 478 thousand Euros.