The objective of the project FIT4SMES, co-financed by the CEI and by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region and led by Informest, is to create a network of expertise for facilitating access to funds dedicated to small and medium enterprises in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
SMEs are increasingly becoming the backbone of the EU economy, and yet still face many problems, such an excessive exposure to risk in relation to size and the difficulties of accessing funds. These obstacles are even more constraining and widespread outside of the EU such as Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine - the non-EU CEI Member States to which the project was addressed and where wide margins of improvement could be achieved within the business financing system.
To accomplish this, FIT4SMES concentrates on the activities of the international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank Group, the European Investment Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – which offer specific and targeted programmes for these areas. The impact of this significant liquidity, however, may sometimes be lessened by insufficient information or the end beneficiaries’ poor understanding of procedures. The conference held in mid-April in Trieste (Italy), under the title "Financial Facilities for SMEs: Training and Capacity Building for Business Support Organisations in Non-EU Member States of the Central European Initiative" presented a high-level comparison of the possibilities offered by financial institutions in the nine non-EU CEI Member States.
Mr. Giorgio Rosso Cicogna, CEI Alternate Secretary General, stated that FIT4SMES was: “a project with a distinct purpose to develop management efficiency, and entrusted to a circle of international relations already of a certain level. FIT4SMES is a result of the fruitful collaboration between Informest and the CEI, providing an unusual combination of operational and economic skills and diplomatic and governmental capacities.”
The conference also showcased the Italian participants’ investment opportunities in the countries involved in the project. As explained by Informest Vice-president, Silvia Accerbi: “only a few months after signing of the CEI – Informest Agreement we are fully operational on a crucial issue that concerns the current period of crisis: access to funding for small businesses. We are creating a network of knowledge of and information accessibility to the programmes of the major international financial institutions, especially in the countries with which we have strong economic relations, for example, Albania. It is an opportunity for development also for Italy: since when financial resources are involved, business opportunities, even abroad, are bound to grow inevitably”.
FIT4SMES is committed to providing highly specialised training - to institutions in CEI non-EU Member States that assist enterprises, chambers of commerce, development agencies, technology transfer centres etc. - to access international funding and to enhance their knowledge of the Italian economic realities. Moreover, the project contributes to raising awareness among Italian entrepreneurs of overseas business opportunities.
for more information: dovier@cei-es.org