1. -Honesty-Cooperation-Responsibility-Respect  Established in 2003 by the Ministry of Economy.  Non – profit public institution.  Managing and administrating financial assistance provided by the E Structural Funds (2004-2006 & 2007-2013).  In 2007-2013 period LBSA is responsible for the administration of 1.3 billion EUR at the sectors of: - Energy; - Tourism; - Business; - Research and development.

2. Functions of LBSA Inform potential applicants about the opportunities offered by EU funding, publish calls for applications Collect and evaluate applications Recommend projects to be financed to the Project Selection Committee Administrate financed projects Inform the general public and target groups about the financial assistance and its results Collect payment claims, examine the eligibility of presented expenditures Present all the information about the projects into the EU structural funds supervision database Perform projects control on spot Collect and save regular implementation reports of the projectsPrepare regular progress reports for intermediary institutions

3. Statistics (for 2012-01-27)

4. Calls for Proposals of the Project Application (contest call):  The initiator is Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania  Made available to the public (press, www) in accordance with the defined format  Defined by 2-3 month time limit up to which project applications can be given  LBSA gets documentation, makes seminars, gives written and oral responding

5. Calls for Proposals of the Project Application (planned projects):  Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania makes the lists (for each measure different list)- (National projects)  10 Regional Development Councils consist of lists of projects (for each measure different list)- (Regional projects)  In accordance with the conditions LBSA sends a call for proposal of the project application for every project by the given lists  For every project individual application term and conditions  LBSA gets documentation, makes seminars, gives written and oral responding

6. Preparation of the Project Application  Information on published calls placed on the web pages of Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania, LBSA and EU funding.  Relevant documents for the applicants are hosted on the web pages of Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania and LBSA : ‾Description of implement, description of the project financing terms ‾Application general part (A) ‾Application special part (B) ‾Filing instructions and examples ‾Project List (for the planned projects)  An application prepared in accordance with the requirements is sent to LVPA

7. Preparation of the Project Application (most common Application mistakes):  Provide activities which are not in the list  Information doesn’t match in different application parts (generally information about project monitoring indicators)  Make mistakes when fill in the budget (mix categories)  Provide too much money for Project administrative cost  Don’t separate eligible cost from non eligible cost  Don’t take into account signed contracts (when fill in the Project period)  Some procurement which must be done until the end of application assessment are not made

8. The documents which Applicant is required to submit Specified in the description of the project financing terms : description of the project financing terms

9. Evaluation of the Project Applications: Administrative compliance and Eligibility assessment

10. Evaluation of the Project Applications: Eligibility assessment

11. Evaluation of the Project Applications: Benefits and quality

12. Results of assessment are entered into SFMIS

13. Information about assessment of the Project is published in EU funding web page

14. Preparation of contracts

15. Contract amendment According to the agreement between LBSA and the Ministry of Economy Contract amendments are: EssentialNon-essential

16. Contract amendment Essential contract amendments Contract artical removal The change of project activities with a significant impact on project scope, goals and objectives Transfer project beneficiary’s rights and responsibilities Project budget change, > 20 % Reduction of the monitoring indicators The change of project beneficiary’s juridical status Changing the amount of funding The change of project implementation period

17. Contract amendment processes in SFMIS

19. Areas for improvement  Reduce the requirements for the submission of the documents (paper version). Provide only those which are necessary;  During the preparation of the contract information in SFMIS automatically upload the data to the field “Contract” in order to avoid mistakes and save time;  Possibility to correct quickly technical mistakes in SFMIS by ourselves.