emphasis was placed on innovation and the pro-
        
        
          motion of each region’s comparative advantages.
        
        
          Especially for retail trade, an activity of obvious
        
        
          importance for the Greek economy and employ-
        
        
          ment, a special NSRF-financed action will be
        
        
          soon proclaimed.”
        
        
          It should be noted that the ministry asked the
        
        
          regions to classify the KADs that are eligible for
        
        
          inclusion to the programme, in three categories
        
        
          (high, medium and low priority). This ranking will
        
        
          be taken into account during the assessment of
        
        
          the proposals, in order to give emphasis to the
        
        
          sectors that offer comparative advantages to
        
        
          each region.
        
        
          Moreover, the submission of proposals for inclu-
        
        
          sion to the programme ICT4GROWTH (Business
        
        
          Aid for Implementing Investment projects in the
        
        
          Development and Provision of Innovative
        
        
          Products and Value-Added Services), budgeted
        
        
          at
        
        
          €
        
        
          120 million, began on January 14.
        
        
          The programme’s main aim is to provide assis-
        
        
          tance to business plans for the design, develop-
        
        
          ment and marketing of innovative products and
        
        
          value-added services related to, or based on, infor-
        
        
          mation and communications technologies (ICT).
        
        
          A major breakthrough of the ICT4GROWTH ini-
        
        
          tiative is that the final amount of the aid will be
        
        
          linked to quantitative targets, such as employ-
        
        
          
            Trade with Greece
          
        
        
          
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