FDBusiness.com

EU producers will receive an increased budget of €133 million in 2017 to promote EU agricultural products outside and inside the EU and to continue finding new markets. The European Commission has adopted the 2017 promotion strategy for EU agricultural products with a total budget of €133 million compared to the €111 million available for 2016. This amount will co-finance several programmes, most of which will target third countries and regions, including China, Middle East, North America, South-East Asia and Japan.

A call for proposals to benefit from the 2017 promotion budget will be launched in January 2017 at the latest. Proposing organisations can apply and their campaigns, usually rolling over three years, will be co-financed by the European Commission at rates of 70-85%.

The 2017 budget represents a clear increase compared with the €111 million from this year, outlining the support provided to EU agri-food producers. The 2016 promotion campaign is successfully following its course as the final beneficiaries were selected and will be in a position to get their campaigns started early next year. The selected campaigns, 60 of them being single programmes and 6 multi programmes* show a more diverse and broader outreach than ever. Indeed, they cover 32 third countries, compared with 23 last year, and within the two major destinations, the USA and China, they go well beyond the most targeted areas of New York and Beijing. The products which will be the most advertised in the campaigns are fruits and vegetables (30% of the programmes), followed by meat (17%) and dairy products (15%). This reflects the importance of promotion policy to support sectors experiencing difficult market situations, like dairy and pigmeat.