Small-micro companies and sole proprietorships need information and business support system that are easy to access, understandable and relevant to the needs of their small businesses in order to grow and react successfully to economic problems and take advantage of the new business opportunities. This need becomes particularly relevant for those cross border small-micro companies that have to face the additional challenge of the socio/economic consequences due to the accession process of the candidate countries. In this context through multi-partnership events and an innovative kind of valuable business information the project aims to fulfil a twofold objective:

-         strengthen the access to available support services to small and entrepreneurs by facilitating information flow and contacts with service providers;
 

-         increase economic co-operation and promote mutually beneficial trading relationship and investment between small and micro companies and sole proprietorships in the border regions of the counterparts in the candidate countries  and in non-border regions of the current member states.

In response to these needs the project’s general objective is to assist three EU border regions (Veneto and Friuli Venezia-Giulia in Italy and Kentriki Makedonia in Greece) in their economic adjustment due to the enlargement process by improving their competitiveness and helping them in coping with the new social and economic difficulties. To achieve these objectives, three partnership events will be organized in:

1.      Padova (March 2005);

2.      Thessaloniki (September 2005);

3.      Udine (April 2006).

About 80 host SMEs from EU border regions and 200 visiting companies from E.U., and candidate countries will participate to the three events.

Therefore the project will involve nearly 1000 SMEs.

A total of 24 Partners from 11 different countries will participate to the project (Italy, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria and Romania).

The project will focus on the following sectors: mechanics, textile and apparel, tourism, footwear, agri-food, design and furnishing (wood).