The Regional Government announced today the extension of repayment deadlines of funds granted under the Line of Credit "Azores Invest II" for micro and small companies. The deadline was extended to eight years.

According to the press release from the meeting held by the Council of the Government in Madalena, Pico Island, with this measure, the Regional Government aims to reinforce "the support to the liquidity of Azorean companies with the creation of conditions to improve their financial situation."

Taking into account the "excellent adherence rate" to the Line of Credit "Azores Invest II," it was decided to reinforce the allocation for the this support line in 10 million Euros, thus setting at 50 million Euros the total amount granted under this business support tool.

"This measure takes into consideration the fact that a total of 39.2 million Euros in funding has been approved under this specific line of credit."

Furthermore, the Regional Government has also approved the amendment to the lines of credit to support companies in order to ensure the introduction of an additional grace period of 12 months for the repayment of funds.

The decision aims to "prevent companies from spending financial resources in repaying loans."

The recognition of the project ESCO Açores - Solar Energy as Project of Regional Interest (PIR) was another decision taken by the Government during this meeting. With a total investment of 10 million Euros, the project will be developed by the company Strongsurvival throughout the Region.

In addition, "this project aims to increase renewable energy production, energy savings and the promotion of autonomy from oil and its by-products. It also defends the implementation of a business model based on the use of photovoltaic solar energy for decentralised power generation."

The Azorean Government also adopted a resolution on the preparation of the next Community Support Framework for 2014/2020, which defines the priorities for the allocation of Community resources to the accomplishment of various strategic goals: the promotion of competitive economic production; the development of strategies to extend education and youth training in order to reduce early school drop-out; the reinforcement of social cohesion measures and the improvement of employability with the development of solid strategy for social inclusion.
 
The promotion of environmental sustainability, reinforcement of efficiency and the improvement of the quality of social and collective systems are other goals defined by the Government of the Azores, which intends to complete the regional contribution for prospective diagnosis by the end of May. This contribution will include the Partnership Agreement to be established between Portugal and the European Commission that will define the regulatory principles of the next Community Support Framework.

In order to reach a broad consensus, the Government of the Azores "has invited social partners and political parties to collect the contributions of all those who wish to participate actively in this process."

At the meeting held by the Council of the Government, it was also approved a resolution defining the sports that will be awarded priority status for investment in the pursuit of sports excellence in the Olympic cycle 2013-2016 as well as the base amount of the financial support to be allocated to regional high performance athletes and young talents.

The sports awarded priority status for investment in the pursuit of sports excellence for this Olympic cycle include judo, swimming, tennis and sailing as well as the non-Olympic sports such as aerobics, golf and karate. The annual base amount of financial support to be awarded to regional high performance athletes and young talents was stipulated at 2,250 Euros per athlete.