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SIGNIFICANCE OF FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF STRUCTURAL FUNDS FOR THE COMPETITIVE ABILITY OF RURAL TOURISM HOMESTEADS
Edmundas Jasinskas, Biruta Svagzdiene, Alexander Bandurin

ABSTRACT.Financial assisstance of the European Union Structural Funds are designated for various industries, especially agriculture is supported. However, to solve the issue of rural development and to decrease the problem of deagrarization the possibilities to move economic activities into other sectors are searched (Jasinskas, 2008; Sun et al., 2010; Brandth, Haugen, 2011) and in this case for the development of rural tourism activities a separate support measure is applied. The purpose of this as well as of other promotion measures is to increase a competitive ability of the supported industry. However, a constant monitoring to assess the significance of support from EU Structural Funds for the competitive ability of rural tourism homesteads is necessary.

The significance of support from EU Structural Funds for the competitive ability of organizations as well as the issue itself is highlighted in this article. The theoretical model, which was created for the assessment of the support influence on the competitive ability, is presented which enables to determine the significance of Structural Funds for specific rates of competitive ability of rural tourism homesteads. .

KEYWORDS: Structural Funds, rural tourism homesteads, business support, industry policy.

JEL classification: L80, L88, M21.