An expert assessment of Belarus' compliance with the principles of the Small Business Act for Europe was discussed on May 29 at a round table in Minsk.
The meeting was organised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in cooperation with the Council for the Development of Entrepreneurship, in the framework of the EU-funded project ‘EU4Business: From Policies to Action’.
The Small Business Act for Europe is an overarching framework for the EU policy on SMEs. It aims to improve the approach to entrepreneurship in Europe, simplify the regulatory and policy environment for SMEs, and remove the remaining barriers to their development.
At the roundtable, representatives of the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Justice, the National Bank, the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade, and the Development Bank spoke about some of the reforms that were carried out during the implementation of the recommendations of the previous SBA evaluation cycle (2015-2016). Leaders of business associations, as well as leaders of independent research centres commented on the results of reforms in the sphere of SMEs and told about the barriers that entrepreneurs still have.
The Head of the EU Delegation to Belarus Andrea Viktorin noted progress in the policy of the Belarusian government in the field of support and development of private business, and stressed the importance of the republic's interaction with international organizations.
OECD experts Maksim Bablon and Alena Fried made presentations on the main changes in the methodology and the basis of the third stage of the SBA compliance assessment and presented the procedure, deadlines and further actions for preparing the report ‘Economic Policy Index for SME 2020’.