Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend I.Khalilova / The Government of Azerbaijan and European Commission signed a financial memorandum on the national action plan Tacis for Azerbaijan for the 2006 fiscal year, said the Executive Director of the Coordination Office of the Technical Assistance Program of the European Union for Azerbaijan (Tacis), Rufat Mammadov. From the Azerbaijani side, the document was signed by the Minister of Economic Development, Heydar Babayev and from the EU side - Director of the European Cooperation Office, Richard Weber.
The Action Plan was approved by the European Commission on 15 June 2006. The 2006 Action Plan includes projects on the improvement of the investment climate in the country (worth €3mln.), institutional development of the Azerbaijani Economic Development (worth €3mln.), development of a system of professional technical education in the country (worth €3mln.), creation of a twinning-program for the country (worth €6.5mln.) and support in the implementation of the Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan (PCA) with a budget of €3.5mln.
According to Mammadov, currently the technical tasks have been devised only for the project on support to the realization of the PCA agreement and a tender is expected to be announced next week.
After using the budget for 2006, the support for the Azerbaijani projects in line with TACIS will be complete. Further assistance to the country will come from the European neighborhood program.