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Romania, represented at OECD event launching new Small Business Act assessment cycle
Secretary of State for the coordination of the relations with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and development policies for domestic capital with the PM's Chancellery Sorana Baciu participated in Paris on Friday in the launching of the new Small Business Act (SBA) assessment cycle of SMEs development policies in the Western Balkans and Turkey.
According to a Government release sent to AGERPRES, the event aimed at presenting the main stages of the SBA assessment for the period 2016 — 2019 and facilitating a functional and productive dialogue among various entities engaged in drawing up and implementing the development policies of the SME sector in the Wester Balkan states and Turkey.
The second part of the event, devoted to the SMEs access to funding, was chaired and moderated by Sorana Baciu, who also made a review of the main opportunities and challenges which the SMEs in Romania are confronted with in funding their current activity and the development projects.
"The debate focused on the need to enlarge the access of SMEs to alternative financial instruments, such as factoring, leasing, or venture capital," the release reads.
According to the release, Sorana Baciu pointed out the importance of the experience exchange among all involved factors in developing the SME sector, public or private, and the need to transfer the good practices from the states which have already obtained notable results in this respect to states with emerging economies.
The Romanian official pleaded for a re-thinking of public policies in the sense of aligning them to a series of realities of the current business environment. Thus, the main obstacles to the SMEs access to funding are the lack of management skills, the lack of basic financial knowledge and the weak awareness on corporate governance importance. At the same time, the improvement of the regulation framework is needed aimed at developing non-banking financial instruments, and the creation of a stable and predictable business environment must always be a priority of the government. Moreover, the mentorship, consultancy and counseling programmes can bring a significant contribution to increasing the SMEs capacity to draw up and implement realistic business plans and fundable projects, the release also shows.
According to the Government, also attending the event were specialists with experience in funding instruments devoted to the private sector (the Financial Supervisory Authority of Croatia, the Innovation Authority of Israel), SBA coordinators of the Western Balkan states and Turkey, representatives of the OECD, the European Commission, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, analysts and independent experts.
"Romania's participation in this event represents a step forward in the process of accessing to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development," the release also reads.
At the same time, the Government points out that on Thursday Sorana Baciu had meetings with ambassadors of some OECD member states, aimed at promoting Romania as potential candidate state to the status of Organisation member.
"The continuation of the efforts for Romania's accession to the OECD, initiated in the early 2000s, represented ever since the beginning a priority of the current Government. Romania's intention of becoming a member of this forum was reiterated by Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos in June 2016, when he delivered an intervention in the OECD Council meeting in Paris and had a meeting with the Organisation Secretary General Angel Gurria," the release adds.