Two meetings have been held in Chisinau in support of SME development in Moldova, organised by the OECD in the framework of the EU-funded project ‘EU4Business: From Policies to Action’.
On 2 April, the working group of the project on ‘Supporting the implementation and monitoring of Moldova’s SME Development Strategy’ held its first working group meeting, followed on 4 April by an SBA Public-Private Reconciliation meeting.
On 2 April, the OECD discussed Moldova’s strategy to foster SME internationalisation and supply chain linkages in the food processing sector
The Working Group meeting allowed participants to discuss:
(a) barriers to internationalisation faced by the SMEs operating in the food-processing sector,
(b) objectives, methodology and deliverables of the OECD project supporting implementation and monitoring of the SME Development Strategy, and
(c) international practices in supporting better integration of SMEs into global value chains.
The meeting was opened by Mr Vitalie Iurcu, State Secretary at the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure of Moldova, Ambassador Dušan Dacho, Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Chisinau, Mr Gintautas Baranauskas from the EU Delegation to Moldova, and Mr. Daniel Quadbeck from the OECD Eurasia Division.
On 4 April, the OECD shared and discussed initial findings of the third SBA assessment cycle at the SBA public-private meeting. The meeting also offered a platform to discuss initial policy recommendations, encouraging government representatives from line ministries and government agencies, as well as representatives from the private sector, academia and other international organisations to comment and share their views regarding future priorities for the SME development in Moldova.
A parallel session on access to finance was conducted and moderated by Christian Cronauer, Associate at the EBRD, allowing government and private sector representatives to give detailed feedback on preliminary findings related to the policies supporting SME access to finance.
The results of the SBA assessment – SME Policy Index 2020 – will be published in the beginning of 2020.
The EU4Business: From Policies to Action project is implemented by the OECD and supports competitiveness and business environment reforms in the Eastern Partnership countries, working both at country and regional level.