TBILISI, July 11 – Albania is taking part in the NATO-led rescue drills involving the air forces of 12 nations in Georgia.
Participants will learn to help victims of earthquakes and floods, evacuate people by helicopter and set up a field hospital, said Zaza Gogava, chief of general staff of the Georgian armed forces.
The participants include Albania, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Hungary, Jordan, Latvia, Moldova and Turkey.
Several hundred air force personnel from NATO members, including the United States and Germany, and aspiring members, including Georgia and Ukraine, will take part in the 20-day training as part of NATO’s Partnership for Peace, a program of cooperation between the alliance and former Soviet militaries.
“We are here to learn from each other,” said Col. Kazimierz Dynski, a NATO representative who is directing the exercises, dubbed Cooperative Archer 2007.
UN program offers new business opportunities for the Albanian private sector
TIRANA, July 11 – The United Nations Development Program introduced the Black Sea Trade and Investment Promotion Program (BSTIP) on Wednesday for the Albanian Business Community.
“This new project will contribute to the promotion and implementation of regional projects for regional cooperation and development and I would encourage the Albanian business community to take full advantage of this new initiative,” said UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative Gulden Turkoz-Cosslett.
The program aims at promoting regional economic development, developing trade and investment linkages between BSEC Member States impacting the reduction of poverty and offers improved dialogue among countries with political tensions.
Increased trade and investment links will be generated with the private sector of the region and new partnerships will be developed with the business community.
The beneficiaries of the program will be small and medium enterprises, and emphasis will be given to enterprises managed by young people and women entrepreneurs.
The program will be implemented in cooperation with local chambers of commerce and business support organizations.
The BSTIP will also provide opportunities to strengthen the potential of business in the region to take advantage of the sub-regional trade and investment expansion opportunities on a permanent and sustainable basis.
During the presentation, the findings of a recent study which comprises a comprehensive trade flow analysis were also announced. The study identifies priority products and services having an intra-regional investment and trade potential in Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). Furthermore the study indicates that the untapped business potential for Albanian enterprises in the BSEC region is worth USD $3 billion.
The Black Sea Trade and Investment Promotion Program is co-financed by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Greek Ministry of Economy and Finance, UNDP and BSEC. It is the first programme jointly co-financed by the Government of Turkey and Greece under the auspices of UNDP and is also the first partnership project between UNDP and BSEC.
