The level of advance payments of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) funds are to increase to 23%, a 10 percentage point increase, to “give muscle” to implement projects, the Secretary of State for the Economy Pedro Cilínio, announced Tuesday.
“We will strengthen the levels of advance and payment in the [mobilising RRP] agendas. One of the measures we are implementing is to increase the level of advance by another 10 percentage points so that all agendas have an additional volume of funds to start their investments, for example,” said the minister speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a visit to Portuguese companies attending the MICAM footwear fair in Milan.
Pedro Cilínio explained that under the RRP Portugal has an advance rule of 13% but following negotiations, they have identified the possibility of increasing by 10 percentage points the initial advance level that the agendas can receive.
According to the Secretary of State, this reinforcement “will have to be done in two moments, for cash management reasons”. This is “because we will receive 13% initially and what we can do is apply this 13% and get a new tranche of advance to deliver to the companies”.
According to Cilínio, “this allows, globally, that within a maximum period of three months after contracting, an agenda will have 23% of the PRR money in its hand to give the muscle of execution to these projects that is very important”.
(Patrícia Dinis | Lusa.pt)
Source: euractiv.com