WINCOME

Common Challenge/Overall Objective: The economies of the GR/AL CB Less Favoured areas (LFA) diverse at all spatial scales. While agriculture is perceived as vital and proved to be the most resilient sector of the CB local economy (the agriculture sector both in GR and AL increased GVA by 3,2%&12,6%respectively), employment in other sectors is generally higher(GR area is considerably less agriculture and more heavily service-oriented than the AL one). Moreover,both in two countries,LFA’s policies often address issues related to economic development,infrastructure & environment.

WINCOME is about how a joint route of promoting the outward-looking of SMEs & local wine products to international markets can support non-homogeneous areas to flourish in more than one field.

The WINCOME‘s overall objective is in full accordance with the programme’s specific objective of the thematic priority in which belongs: Improve CB capacity to support entrepreneurship, business survival & competitiveness.

Approach/Main Outputs:WINCOME‘s idea is based on the needs of the PBs in relation mainly to Viticulture and Wine Production by applying the “Bottom-Up” approach which goes beyond excising practise of “Top-Down” local development policy. The “bottom-up” approach means that local actors participate in decision-making about the strategy and in the selection of the priorities to be pursued in their local area. Previous CB experience has shown that the bottom-up approach should not be considered as alternative or opposed to top-down approaches from national and/or regional authorities, but rather as combining and interacting with them, in order to achieve better overall results.

Under the WINCOME, the basic elements of cross-border cooperation are those of cooperation among local and regional authorities and businesess, but also an orientation on elimination of the economic dysfunctions caused by border.

The PBs strongly motivated from the opportunity given for a) transformation of the border from a line of separation into a “workspace” for Joint Exploitation and Promotional Actions of Wine Products, and b) promotion of economic growth and exchange of know-how.

Main expected outputs include:
  • Targeted Studies of the cross-border area & Plans for the growth of the SMEs extroversion.
  • Assesment of Cross-border and International Commercial Networks of Wine Products,
  • Cataloguing and Commercial Evaluation of Local Wines’ Varieties (Zitsa-Amyntaio-Korce)
  • Recording & Investigation of genetic variability (indigenous grape varieties, Zitsa-Amyntaio-Korce)-for a first time,
  • 3 Business & Financial Planning Tools of a “Smart Wine Production Unit”,
  • Info-kiosks (showrooms),
  • 2 Joint Business Seminars,
  • 4 Local agro-seminars (in-situ),
  • 1 CB Wine Exhibition,
  • 3 Pilot/demonstration projects for Smart production of grapevines’ propagating material.

Project Partners

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