The Business Consulting Institute (BCI) is ready to provide assistance to Chisinau authorities in attracting funds offered by the European Commission for cross-border cooperation. During a seminar held at the Chisinau City Hall, BCI director Mihai Roscovan stated that the organisation he leads is willing to provide technical assistance to the municipality in preparing six projects that could be financed as part of the Moldova-Romania Neighbourhood Programme and help it find Romanian project partners. According to Roscovan, BCI has held such seminars in most of the country’s districts, where local authorities have already begun developing projects. As the deadline for submissions for the PHARE/TACIS Moldova-Romania Neighbourhood Programme covering the period 2004-2006 expires on 15 February 2008, Mihai Roscovan hopes the municipality will be able to submit at least one project until then, taking into account that its current institutional capacity and human resources are rather limited. According to him, Chisinau is advantaged relative to other potential applicants in the country due to its financial capacity of co-financing, in a proportion of 10-25%, regional cooperation projects, as recommended by European standards. Roscovan mentioned at the seminar that although the BCI has assisted many settlements all over Moldova in obtaining funding, this hasn’t been the case of Chisinau, where he served as municipal councillor for many years. The problem with Chisinau was that the former city authorities were composed of persons who hadn’t acknowledged the importance of projects, which can bring considerable non-reimbursable funds. The 2004-2006 PHARE/TACIS Moldova-Romania Neighbourhood Programme has a total available budget of 3.3 million euros, and beneficiaries may apply for funding ranging from 200,000 to 1 million euros for projects in such areas as economic or social infrastructure, tourism promotion, environment protection, seminars, trainings, conferences, said Roscovan, adding that in March, another cross-border programme for Moldova and Romania will be launched, in this case, with an available budget of 100 million euros. The BCI conducts such seminars in the framework of the project “Developing skills of local and regional communities in drafting and managing EU-financed projects”, supported by the Moldova Soros Foundation as part of the European Initiative Programme.