Ten new projects have been approved for subsidies under the European Union’s ‘Sapard’ (special pre-accession assistance for agriculture and rural development) programme in Bulgaria, according to the country’s agriculture ministry.

Five of the projects are for the purchase of agricultural machinery, two projects are for the construction of new meat processing facilities, one for the construction of a slaughterhouse and two for restructuring meat-processing firms. This latest wave of approvals brings the number of projects enjoying Sapard financing in the country to 38.

Sapard aims to support the efforts made by the Central and Eastern European applicant countries in the pre-accession period as they prepare for their participation in the common agricultural policy and the single market. The overall budget in each year of the programme's seven-year run (2000-06) amounts to Euro529 million ($464.5 million), with Euro53 million ($46.5 million) allocated to Bulgaria

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