Public consultation: Small Business, Big World – A new partnership to help small businesses seize global opportunities

Posted on May 19, 2011 by


The European Commission is seeking to consult small businesses and other stakeholders on ideas for a more integrated and coherent approach to public support services for helping companies to successfully new international markets beyond Europe.
 
The Commissions proposal is based on the premises that:
  1. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) generally need some form of assistance when making their first steps to internationalise their business
  2. Required support cannot be fully provided by the private sector alone.

For these reasons, significant resources are devoted to SME support from various European, national and regional sources and a number of organisations and support programmes exist in this area. 

The Commission believes that the real impact of the funds spent could be increased by achieving more visibility of the actions and more clarity for SMEs as well as by bringing about a more effective cooperation between the parties involved in SME support.

To this end, a “mapping” and stock-taking of existing services in markets abroad is proposed by the Commission as a basis for shaping future programmes.

DG Enterprise and Industry started consulting stakeholders and concerned organisations on the very topic of business support activities at the end of 2009. The views expressed by contributors in this first round of consultations were used to design the EC’s study entitles “Opportunities for the Internationalisation of SMEs, the report for which is due for publication shortly.

How to submit your contribution

 

Posted in: Policy