The last report on the financial execution of the programs that integrate the National Strategic Reference Framework shows that the Azores Operational Program, PROCONVERGÊNCIA, supported by the European fund addressed at the investment, leads the average execution levels shown up by the whole NSRF, particularly regarding the national planning supported by FEDER.

The Azores guaranteed 55 percent of the national total of the financial execution of the structural fund meant for investments (FEDER), what does so that the investment already carried out in the Region is superior to the registered one in the whole of the rest of the Country.

According to the vice president of the Government, the document at issue suggests that “the value of the candidatures approved in the Azores in the PROCONVERGÊNCIA already exceed 304 million euros of investment, for a support of the FEDER structural fund of 241 million euros, value much superior to the registered one at national level”.

More expressive are the values observed for the financial execution (paid expense) of the planning, it added Sérgio Ávila, specifying that in PROCONVERGÊNCIA, there were already paid 39 million euros of the global value of the projects approved to the final beneficiaries, “the highest financial execution rate of all the programs included in the NSRF”.

By the end of November, the totality of the Community co-financing of the expense presented and validated in the PROCONVERGÊNCIA framework had already been paid to the respective beneficiaries and promoters of the projects, it indicated the governor, affirming still that the Azores had the capacity of executing 55% of the total of the national investment included by the new Community planning period, which is “really extraordinary when the Region represents 2,3 percent of the whole national part”.

These results are demonstrative “of the quick fulfilment of the projects approved in the Region”, he considered. 

The PROCONVERGÊNCIA includes at present 116 projects divided in five strategic axes: Giving dynamism to the Creation of Wealth and Employment in the Azores with 23 projects in execution in an investment of 88 million euros; Qualifying and Integrating the Azorean Society with 26 projects executed in areas as different as the modernization of the school equipments network or the valorisation of the cultural heritage, among others and that represent undertakings in the value of 55 million euros.

The axe that aims at improving the regional networks of infrastructures of accessibilities includes 39 projects in execution in the amount of 97 million euros.

Still as defined strategic axes and with a total of 28 projects there are still the Environmental Qualification and the Compensation of the Overcosts of the Ultraperiphery in an investment of 68 million euros. 

For Sérgio Ávila, the level of execution of the expressed projects allows that “the Azores continue, in the new Community support framework, assuming the national leadership in the analysis and approval of projects of investment and in their immediate payment” being guaranteed to all the investors, “the on time payment of the responsibilities undertaken by the Government as part of the current period of financial planning, promoting, in this way, a climate of confidence in the promoters of the investments, who have in the good management of the Community funds, in the Azores, a guarantee of stability and security”.

The now made public report confirms the “good management” of the Azorean Executive that “once more positively stands out in the national and European context, without having in the Region, edge for the slowing of the foreseen investments in the areas considered to be strategic for the current period of financial planning”, he concluded.