Sarajevo, October 13, 2009 – The U.S. Government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is pleased to announce that the U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission, Jonathan Moore, USAID Director Allan Reed, Swedish Ambassador Bosse Hedberg, and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) Director Anders Hedlund will officially launch two jointly funded $35 million projects, FIRMA and FARMA, on October 14, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. in the UNITIC Tower in Sarajevo. All media are invited to attend the event. The Fostering Interventions for Rapid Market Advancement (FIRMA) is a five-year $21 million US-Swedish project whose purpose is to support economic development and increase employment in the wood processing, tourism and light manufacturing sectors. These three sectors combined comprise approximately one-fourth of BiH’s GDP and over one-third of its exports. USAID and SIDA have also partnered in the design and implementation of a four-year $14 million agricultural and agri-business development initiative, The Fostering Agriculture Markets Activity (FARMA) project. The goal of FARMA is rapid, sustainable and broad-based economic growth through improved competitiveness of BiH agricultural and food producers, as well as through expanding environmentally sustainable production, processing and sales of value-added agricultural products. Both projects are developed in response to the increased need in Bosnia and Herzegovina to accelerate broad-based economic growth and achieve a self-sustaining economy. To date, the U.S. Government, through USAID, has provided over $1 billion in assistance to support economic, democratic and social progress in BiH.