The EURED II project – EU support to SME and Regional Economic Development in BiH (started in December 2005 and will last 21 months) build on the achievements of the first part (EURED project April 2003 - October 2005). The overall objective of the EURED II project is to stimulate economic growth and employment generation, thereby contributing to the creation of a basis for sustainable development and social dialogue in BiH. EURED II project activities consist of the institutional support, capacity building the EU RED Fund and the Communication and Knowledge Transfer activities.
The specific objectives of EURED II are:

• To support the establishment of a comprehensive institutional and legal framework for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) promotion and development, in line with the BiH SME Development Strategy, the EU Charter on SMEs and regional development plans;
• To strengthen economic regions and the regional development framework, in line with EU practice;
• To support economic regeneration, job creation and human and infrastructure development in the different regions.

The majority of businesses in BiH can be categorized as SMEs and some 80% of projects identified in the RED strategies relate directly to SME support. Therefore, the incorporation of SME objective in the project is a very important one. Along with the latter Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BIH (MoFTER) is together with the RDAs a crucial partner and beneficiary of the EURED II project.

The first EURED project successfully strengthened two existing Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and it established three new agencies. The project provided also technical assistance to the agencies in development of five Regional Economic Development (RED) Strategies, and provided assistance to the EC in managing the RED Fund, which financed forty-seven SME and tourism development projects and the operational costs of the RDAs themselves. For more on EURED 1 see www.eured-bih.org.

EURED II is implemented by
in consortium with