While tourism has been, and continues to be, important to the local economy, it has not matched its potential. To remedy this and attract more tourists, local government and businesses in the city decided to ensure that the standard of services offered to visitors met internationally accepted standards

The main objective of this contract is increasing the intermediary organisations and SMEs’ knowledge on COSME (Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) and to enhance the coordination capacity in the country for effective participation in the programme and the Small Business Act (SBA) framework.

Rize has the best reserves of tea in Turkey, however, the SMEs in the Tea region is not qualified enough to compete. Hence, the general purpose of the project was to increase the competitiveness of the tea sector concentrated in Rize and its surroundings. More specifically, it wanted