Macedonia's Government adopted a five-year Programme for supporting the agricultural and rural development.

The EUR 725 million-Programme incorporates the agricultural policies for the period 2013-1017, i.e. under the document EUR 135 million is earmarked for 2013; EUR 140m – 2014; and per EUR 150m for 2014 and 2015.

Thus far programmes for financial support were being adopted on annual basis, something that offered no certainty to farmers, Vice-Premier Vladimi Pesevski said Thursday at a press conference.

"Now, in order to avoid such uncertainty, we have decided to adopt a five-year programme, which incorporates detailed plan for allocating the subsidies," he added.

In the next five years, the support will be focused on capital investments in the agricultural sector by increasing the budget for rural development to over EUR30 million on annual basis.

The document also foresees larger sum for the Agricultural credit discount fund – agribusiness support credit line in Macedonia. Thus, EUR three million is planned for this fund in 2013; four in 2014 and five million in 2015-2017.

Agriculture Minister Ljupco Dimovski considers that the programme offers stability and certainty to farmers in terms of how they should plan their production.