TURKEY: The meeting of the BSEC working group on SMEs

The BSEC Working Group on SMEs convened at the BSEC Headquarters in Istanbul, on 5-6 May 2015. The representatives of the BSEC Member States and Related Bodies, as well as the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and Endeavor Turkey participated in the meeting.

Country presentations were made by the delegations of the Hellenic Republic, the Republic of Moldova, Romania and the Republic of Turkey regarding best practices in promoting youth entrepreneurship. The Working Group decided to continue with the exchange of best practices on this topic during its next meeting as well, taking into consideration the importance of strengthening and spreading entrepreneurial values among the members of the younger generation in the region to promote innovation and self-employment. Following the positive outcome of the BSEC Workshop on Entrepreneurship and Technology Development which was held at the BSEC Headquarters in 2014, the Republic of Turkey, as the Country-Coordinator of the Working Group, announced plans to organize in 2015 yet another workshop, this time on the topic of energy efficiency in SMEs. The Working Group addressed the different possibilities for enhancing interaction with the International Network of Small and Medium Enterprises (INSME) which is a Sectoral Dialogue Partner of BSEC since 2006. The Working Group decided to continue discussions on this topic at its next meeting.

Guest Speaker Ms. Didem ALTOP, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Endeavor Turkey, made a presentation regarding the Endeavor Model in selecting, mentoring and accelerating high-impact entrepreneurs and how the use of this model could also benefit the economies of the countries of the BSEC region.

The Representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) in Turkey Dr. Colin DÜRKOP made a presentation on the findings and recommendations of the BSEC-KAS Workshop on “SMEs and Small Farms in Agribusiness”, which was organized jointly by the BSEC PERMIS and KAS in Chisinau, on 16-17 April 2015. The Representative of KAS informed the participants that the next BSEC-KAS Joint Workshop is envisaged to take place in Ukraine during the first half of 2016 on the topic of “SMEs and Green Economy”. The Working Group expressed its gratitude to KAS for its long-standing support to BSEC cooperation in the sphere of SMEs. As is known, the latest BSEC-KAS Workshop held in Chisinau constituted the 47th workshop organized jointly with KAS since 1997, aiming to enhance dialogue between the stakeholders and decision-makers in the development of SME policies in the BSEC region.

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