Under the MoU, the Italian Embassy will provide a grant to the Ministry to support Capacity Building of employees in the Public Procurement domain.

The Italian Embassy through the Italian Development Cooperation office will provide a grant of $410,000 (EUR 332,000)to finance the project, and another $148,144 for technical support.

The project will be implemented by the Italian office and the Bassil Fuleihan Institute of Finance.

“This new MoU brings the total support provided by Italy to the government to over $6.4 million for five projects over the last few months,” said the Minister of Finance, Rayya El Hassan.

El Hassan said that the Ministry has, and in line with the Paris III Reform Paper, successfully completed a national guide on public procurement that governs the terms of public tenders with the help of a World Bank grant.

She said that the completion of the guide is integral as it improves the national bidding system and qualifies it to become a standard that could be used in international finance programs.

The Minister stressed the importance of the right implementation of the reforms which will reduce depletion of time and money in any bidding process.

Ambassador of Italy to Lebanon, Gabriel Kikya, said that the MoU will have a positive impact on management of various public sector bodies. “The MoU will help improve donors’ confidence in the Lebanese government,” he said.