The Government of the Azores has undertaken a reform of the Support System for the Promotion of Azorean products, "introducing some changes to the previous scheme in order to further enhance the Region's export capacity," stated Vasco Cordeiro at the end of a visit to the Profrutos Cooperative. This visit was also organised with the purpose of presenting the new support scheme.

Among the changes introduced, Vasco Cordeiro stressed the "increase of transport subsidisation rates for Faial companies, growing from 50 to 90 percent. In the case of companies based on São Miguel and Terceira, the rates will increase from 50 to 75 percent. The remaining islands already have subsidisation rates of 90% in the area of transport." "In the case of regional products classified under 'Protected Geographical Indication - PGI,' 'Protected Designation of Origin - PDO,' 'Designation of Controlled Origin - DOC' or 'Azores Handicrafts,’ the support for their promotion and marketing will be increased by10 percent," stressed the government official.

Moreover, the Regional Secretary also mentioned "an increase in the areas eligible for support, such as the case of storage costs, export logistics, marketing and distribution in large commercial establishment outside the Region, transport of packages for regional products and their subsequent marketing."

Under the reform now complete, we also intend to "simplify procedures in the submission of applications."

This new system also supports expenses related to maritime and air transport for regional products, base products, raw materials or intermediate products from the production place to the place of final processing in the Region; logistics and storage; insurance and shipping costs; packaging acquisition; conduction of market research; design and production of labels for the marketing of products; organisation of campaigns and other promotional events in the archipelago and abroad.

The support allocated for all companies will have a stipulated limit of 200,000 Euros per three years. The previous scheme provided the allocation of 200,000 Euros only for operators based on Santa Maria, Graciosa, São Jorge, Pico, Flores and Corvo, 50,000 Euros for operators based on São Miguel, Terceira and Faial and 100,000 Euros for cooperatives based on these islands.

The new system will support the inter-island transport of products such as pineapple, tea, water, soft drinks and beers as well as the transport of tobacco and manufactured tobacco substitutes for outside the Region. Moreover, the inter-island and external transport of products such as prepared or preserved beef, meat offal or blood, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic invertebrates, prepared or preserved, will be also comprised by these support measures.

For the Regional Secretary for the Economy, Vasco Cordeiro, this reform aims to "introduce some improvements to the current system by facilitating the access of businesspeople to these support measures and boosting the participation of Azorean companies in events intended to promote regional products, improve their advertising strategies and the support to the transport of products."

Vasco Cordeiro recalled that "the system to support the promotion of Azorean products had already registered an increase of funds over fifty percent with a budget of 1 million Euros that grew to 1.5 million Euros." It covers "several relevant areas for the export of Azorean products and the promotion of our products in external markets."

"The support to the transport of Azorean products had already been included with the purpose of reinforcing their competitiveness in some areas," the Regional Secretary reminded, considering that in the case of vegetable and fruit production these support measures may have an important impact on import reduction and replacement."