EU project boosts SME growth

TIRANA, Nov. 22 – A euro 1 million EU-funded project that came to an end last weekend helped Albanian SMEs to improve their businesses with the objective of supporting economic growth in Albania, the EC Delegation to Albania said. The Turn Around Management Programme (TAM) implemented by EBRD, for the past 24 months, assisted 18 Albanian SMEs to increase their turnover, market share, efficiency, and exports, to improve their management and organisational structures, and also their sensitivity to the environment.
SMEs dominate Albania’s economy, representing 99.6% of all registered businesses. SMEs in Albania concentrate on the local market and lack export competitiveness. Various international reports, including the Opinion of the European Commission on Albania’s readiness to gain candidate status, note that the operational environment for SMEs in Albania has seen remarkable improvements, especially as regards company registration. However, important weaknesses remain, Albanian SMEs are largely oriented towards the domestic market, and are predominantly unable to compete well with EU ones and therefore survive EU market pressures.
Assisting Albanian SMEs to develop the skills and capacities needed to grow and enter the EU market successfully is important in framework of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, and the country’s overall development. The TAM programme has brought executives and industry experts together with the management of 18 selected Albanian SMEs ranging from beer procedures to furniture makers in regular meetings and contact in order to improve product quality and sales, financial management and planning, access to finance, organisational structure, and exports.
During the closing ceremony, the First Secretary of the European Union Delegation to Albania, Mr Aneil Singh noted that “This is a very concrete project that has directly assisted some well known companies to learn from EU business management expertise. We hope that in medium term this will help them grow their business by increasing exports, jobs and quality of their products.”
Assistance in this area continues with another project funded by the EU with 2.2 million euros to support SME development in Albania, focusing on access to innovation and technology.