The Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and Business Climate, Delina Ibrahimaj, said that a Lek 300 million fund has been made available for the new 2025 grant scheme for startups.

Ibrahimaj said that the scheme aims to support and strengthen innovative initiatives. She underlined that applications are open until December 30, 2024, when participants will have the opportunity to become part of the transformation of the startup ecosystem in Albania.

The minister listed the three categories that can apply for grants. "It is important that companies in Albania have access to environmental sustainability and innovation and digitalization. In our strategy for supporting innovative entrepreneurship, we have defined some priority areas, they are based on another strategy in the smart specialization strategy. Here is tourism, agriculture, energy, i.e. sectors which are priorities in the policies of the Albanian government," said Ibrahimaj in an interview for News 24.

“Any individual who has an idea, any business that has started to develop an innovative product or service, and any less than 6 years old, i.e. it is in the service phase and wants to increase the trading stage why not aim for internationalization? So three categories can apply to the 2025 grant. Ideas can be financed, even though you may have an unregistered business but have ideas to create a prototype, you can be financed up to Lek 1.5 million or Euro 15,000. It is a 100% financing scheme,” said Ibrahimaj.

The second band goes up to Euro 45,000 and the third up to Euro 90,000. While there will also be some expenses that are co-financed up to the level of 85%, 75%... We have encouraged the applicants to apply in cooperation with facilitators. Facilitators are those companies that aim to train and support startups," underlines Ibrahimaj.

Furthermore, Ibrahimaj said that the economic indicators show that the Albanian economy is growing at an accelerated rate and higher than the countries of Europe, but also the countries of the region. The minister said that Albania is at a growth level that is above its potential, while she emphasized that business profits are increasing.

Also, the minister said that the reform for inspections of businesses and enterprises will be one of the government's priorities for the coming year.

She said that this reform aims to reduce the number of inspections and to have more inspections from the office than in the country. Ibrahimaj said that in the first inspection, the inspectors will leave recommendations for the business, so there will be no penalty in the first inspection.

"During 2025, we will prepare the by-laws that accompany the law that will guarantee the full implementation of the reform," said the minister. " It is a very big job that has been done with all public institutions to identify the services to understand the process and the documents that businesses should have and the time they should wait," said Ibrahimaj.