Sectors & markets
EBRD - Trade Ready in Georgia
EBRD program "Trade Ready in Georgia" to support SMEs in Georgia.
EBRD - Trade Ready in Georgia
Tuesday 16 October
On October 16, the CCIFG went to the EBRD's conference introducing their program "Trade Ready in Georgia" to support SMEs in Georgia.
Since the beginning of its operation in 2012, the EBRD invested 3.2 billion EUR in Georgia.
Supporting the SMEs has always been a priority that is why the bank has been collaborating with the Georgian banking sector: TBC Bank, Bank of Georgia and Basis Bank.
This program “Trade ready” has the goal to change the future of Georgia and of companies, by accompanying them in their export development. The government is strongly involved in the process. Georgia is among the 2 pilot countries, alongside Serbia.
Georgia is often considered as a small market of 3.7 million inhabitant but thanks to its bilateral agreements with CIS, Turkey, EU, China, India,… the country reaches a much more larger market (2.3 billion).
But one of the challenge of Georgia, is to start to use the opportunity created by the FTAs. In order to fully take care of the advantages, there is a need for business education to export, for providing trainings and masterclass.
The number of exporting companies in Georgia has been growing but there is still a large space for progression.
Enterprise Georgia, to complete the initiative, is also planning a “Co-financing of the equipment” in order to renew the equipment according to the European standards.
The aim of the program is to
1. give access to different type of financial tools
2. to educate through trainings SMEs.
It will focus on trainings in trade finance, on consulting on trade and merchandises thanks to local and international consultants. The goal is to fill the gaps.
For the financial aspect a Trade passport online was design. 11 criteria are to be analysed in order to give a feedback.
The donors are: EU, Sweden, ETC
To create visibility on the program, publicity campaigns will be leaded. One of them will be for the event taking place in Technopark the 22nd and 23rd of October.
