Program Phare 2003 was finished in November 2006. Program was taken as a preparation for implementing of structural funds and consisted of grant scheme for grants on buying modern producing technologies and activities in consultancy.

Program Phare 2003 (TECHNOLOGY, CONSULTANCY) was finished in November 2006

Phare program was taken as a preparation for implementing of structural funds. In charge of PAO — Programme authorising officer — was delegated to Department of structural funds by means of Minister´s decree No. 25/2003. CzechInvest helped to applicants as an intermediary agency. The program was implemented on the basis of Financial memorandum covered between Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic and the European Commission — DG ENLARGEMENT, which was signed on October 15, 2003 and financed by 75 % from preaccession aid — Phare and by 25 % from national budget. The objective of program was to support SMEs and consisted of two parts:

1. Grant scheme TECHNOLOGY

In this grant scheme 90 SMEs were supported to buy modern producing technologies till the winding—up of the program (November 30, 2006). In total 333 applications were received and assessed and 101 contracts signed. The difference between number of signed and supported contracts was caused by fact the some beneficiaries decided to quit grant contract a financed the project entirely from their own sources.

In spite of the fact that implementation of the Phare program was delayed the preparation of project were for many enterprises, which were not one of the 90 succesfull ones, a worth experience which could be used for applications for Operational program Industry and enterprised cofinanced from structural funds.

2. Service contract (consultancy services)

In this part of Phare program a service contract was signed for 2 676 375,— EUR with GFA Terra Systems GmBH — German consulatancy company.

In the frame of the contract three blocks of activities were implemented:

• National Register of Consultants
• Czech Benchmarking Index
• Company competitiveness program

The National Register of Consultants was launched in September 2005. At these days approximately 200 consultans are in database and continuous selection, assessment and training is ongoing. Program Phare was prepared as pilot scheme for such activities and continuing is and will be financed from structural funds.

Czech Benchmarking Index was implemented and serves to SMEs for analyzing their strenghths and weaknesses of their business (as financial ones, as quality of production, supllier´s and customer´s relations, human resources etc.).

Company competitiveness program was launched on January 1, 2006 and the aim was to provide approximately 50 selected SMEs with consultancy services for favoured prices. In total 95 applications were received and 48 SMEs contracted. For strict time limits for the closure of the program (November 30, 2006) some beneficiaries decided to quit contracts and finally 36 projects were supported.