Around fifty participants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro gathered in Belgrade on 28 January for the "Regional Sector Stakeholders’ Conference on Advanced Biofuels and Rural Innovation", organised by the CEI in the framework of the project “Improving Cooperation in SEE by Actions for Strengthening the RCC” financed by the EU IPA Programme.
The conference, hosted at the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce, provided new opportunities for networking and connecting perspectives.
Representatives from the Regional Cooperation Council, the EU Delegation, the UNECE and the Imperial College (UK) pointed out their readiness to support the implementation of initiatives for the use of advanced biofuels and rural innovation in the Western Balkans and therefore for the establishment of the market conditions for this new renewable energy source.
Representatives from the academia and the business community also agreed that there was great potential for advanced biofuels and rural innovation in the WBC region and that the development of this specific sector would bring about potential benefits such as job creation, innovation and economic growth, energy security and environmental upgrading.
Participants assessed short to long term fund-raising opportunities and provided WBC stakeholders with greater visibility also for the establishment of fruitful cooperation relations within the framework of the recently started EU-funded project S2BIOM (Delivery of sustainable supply of non-food biomass to support “resource-efficient” Bioeconomy of Europe). This project is funded under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development and the CEI actively participates as project partner.
For more information: sinkovic@cei.int; http://www.rcc.int/; http://www.s2biom.eu/
