Swedish Ambassador to BiH Johanna Strömquist and Head of Development Cooperation of the Swedish Embassy in BiH Torgny Svenungsson, with their associates, visited the Sarajevo Regional Development Agency SERDA to be informed on activities of the agency and current project activities. The focus of the discussion was on the implementation of the Challenge to Change (C2C) project, financed by the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden with around EUR 4 million.

Four Calls for Proposals have been launched so far within C2C project, which supports innovative business entities from BiH and Sweden, and in total 2.074 businesses entities have applied. Contracts have been signed with 106 grant beneficiaries, for which a total of EUR 2.2 million is planned from the Challenge Fund. Grant beneficiaries also provide their own contribution of EUR 4.9 million, so the total value of approved projects is around EUR 7 million. These project include the metal sector, wood industry, IT, tourism, etc. Thanks to the implementation of these projects, it is planned to create about 500 new jobs.

Representatives of the Embassy of Sweden expressed their satisfaction with the results achieved so far and are very encouraged by the fact that there are innovative and creative business entities in our country who have shown great interest in support from the Challenge Fund.

During the meeting, it was also discussed the forthcoming ceremony of promotion of the beneficiaries of the 3rd Call C2C, which will be held on 31 October 2019 in Sarajevo.