EBRD, European Investment Advisory Hub and EU launch programme to boost SMEs in Romania

Moore Stephens KSC

Over 100 small and medium businesses in Romania will be able to access consultancy services  to improve their competitiveness and this consultancy services will be for strategy, trade promotion, financial management, energy efficiency and marketing, under a programme launched by the European Investment Advisory Hub, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Union.
 
Tailored business advice will be made available to more than 240 SMEs over a three-year period across Bulgaria and Romania, as well as Greece. All companies with a turnover of less than €50 million and fewer than 250 employees are eligible for the programme, provided they are majority locally owned.
 
A particular aim of the EIAH is to develop a network of partners, at both local and international level, to offer complementary services by institutions that are best placed and equipped to do so. The cooperation with the EBRD reflects this approach and represents a significant step in meeting unsatisfied demand for advisory support in the SME sector.
 
Most entrepreneurial initiatives start as SMEs rather than big companies and the SMEs are considered to be the backbone of the economic system, ensuring an important part of employment and innovation.
 
The main component of the Romanian economy is represented by SMEs. The Romanian state wants to grow the number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by over 40% until 2020, according to the National Strategy for SME Development 2020. The country had over 474,000 such companies in December 2013. According to the national strategy, their number should increase to 670,000 by the end of 2020.                                                 
 
In order to increase the density of SMEs in Romania from 24-25 per 1000 inhabitants, to 35.45 companies per 1,000 inhabitants by 2020, the solution is to offer them the opportunity to be as powerful and performing as their counterparts in the West Europe, consultancy services provided by European Investment Advisory Hub, EBRD and EU will be one such opportunity.
 
Appreciating EBRD, European Investment Advisory Hub and EU joint initiative to help SMEs of Romania, Mamas Koutsoyiannis, the CEO of Moore Stephens KSC (Romania & R.Moldova), said, “The gap in competitiveness between Romanian SMEs and European firms is generated by limited access to economic, legal, technological and management knowledge. This gap can be recovered through consultancy provided to SMEs which can bring added value to the company.”