Estonia's Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure Taavi Aas (Center) said that the renovation support gives apartment associations an opportunity to significantly improve the quality of their buildings.

"The newly opened renovation support enables to increase the building's energy performance, and improve indoor climate and living conditions through comprehensive renovation. That, in turn, also raises property value," Aas said.

The support can be sought for apartment buildings that were built and entered use before 1993 in which an apartment association operates or which are completely in municipal or city ownership. The support is available at rates of 30 percent of the total cost of the renovation in Tallinn and Tartu, 40 percent in areas adjacent to them, and 50 percent in the rest of Estonia.

Triin Reinsalu, head of the department for dwellings and energy efficiency at Kredex, said that some changes have been introduced to the application procedure.

"We have distributed the volume of renovation support between five areas in order to increase equality between applicants and the country-wide effect of the measure," Reinsalu said, adding that the five areas are northern, western, central, northeastern and southern Estonia.

Close to €3.9 million have been earmarked for northern Estonia, or Harju County, nearly €3.7 million to western Estonia, or Hiiu, Lääne, Pärnu and Saare counties,  and €5.7 million to central Estonia, or Jarva, Lääne-Viru and Rapla counties.

The volume of support is close to €3.6 million in northeastern Estonia, or Ida-Viru County, and nearly €11.7 million in southern Estonia, or Jõgeva, Põlva, Tartu, Valga, Viljandi and Võru counties.

A new round of applications will begin on July 11. All those who are not granted support in the current round, will be able to reapply without having to resubmit their documents.

The volume of the first round of renovation support is €28.5 million and that of the extraordinary round to open in July will total €71 million.

Total investments in apartment building renovations with the help of renovation support by Kredex starting from 2015 amount to €305 million.

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