OREANDA-NEWS. June 04, 2013. Gerhard Schaumberger, head of the technical assistance office of the Embassy of Austria in Chisinau said this during the public workshop “Bilateral Cooperation for Development between Austria and Moldova”, organized with the support of the state office of Moldova. Multilateral projects included, Austria’s financial support for Moldova has amounted to EUR 20 million since 2004.

According to Gerhard Schaumberger, at present, 24 projects are being implemented in Moldova under the Austrian Development Cooperation, including 8 projects in the area of water supply and sewerages and 5 ones in the area of vocational education. 2 projects more are going to be launched soon, Gerhard Schaumberger said. One of them is to be implemented in partnership with the Concordia non-governmental organization to support the elderly and orphans throughout Moldova. The budget of the project amounts to EUR 3 million.

The second project, with the total commitment of EUR 450 thousand is launched on June, 11 and aims to build confidence between the right and the left bank of the Dniester. The project stipulates creation of an incubator for non-governmental organizations of Transdniestria and a training course for the mass media representatives.

The cooperation between Moldova and Austria is based on the Strategy for Moldova 2011-2015, in line with which the budget for our country was EUR 1.9 million in 2012, EUR 2.4 million in 2013, EUR 2.6 million in 2014 and EUR 2.6 million in 2015. Three key areas of the Strategy are water supply and sewerage, vocational education and the governmental sector. Moldovan-Austrian cooperation started in 2001 and in 2004 our country was listed among ADC priority countries. In 2005 ADA opened its office in Chisinau.

Public workshops are held in the framework of the EU project "Support for the State Chancellery- TTSIB" to give information about external aid for Moldova.