On 12 October 2018, in the city of Korça, was organized the activity “Italian-Albanian SME Development Program in Albania to respond to a new phase of development of Entrepreneurship, Growth and competitiveness “.

This event was organized under the auspices of the Italian-Albanian SME Development Program in Albania in close cooperation with the Regional Development Agency (Korça).

The objective of this activity was to provide information and access to finance through the promotion of financial instruments and support programs available to the Albanian private sector, aiming at creating a communication space between venture-seeking entrepreneurs and banks or public actors who could ‘financially respond to this demand, thus reducing the costs and time to find the most suitable funding line for Albanian entrepreneurs’ projects.

Managers and credit officers of Pogradec and Korça Regional offices of Fondi Besa as well as representatives of Marketing Department took part in this event.

During the meeting there were 50 small and medium sized enterprises from the Korça region as well as representatives from the banks and microfinance institutions. During this activity, various experts discussed the various opportunities to support local businesses through funding schemes.

The Director of the Italian-Albanian SME Development Program Management Unit in Albania after delivering f launched a presentation on “SME Financing – Financial and Non-Financial Instruments of the PRODAPS & IASME Program in Support of SME Development”, which are designed to improve access to finance for Albanian SMEs, by creating favorable conditions for the realization of productive investments.

He praised the potential of this economic zone, as well as the large number of SMEs concentrated in this region, both of the nature of production, processing, agro-processing, farmers, wood processing and construction materials, etc. During this expert activity of PMU addressed issues related to the opportunities, conditions and pathway that SMEs should pursue to take advantage of the financial opportunities offered in favor of their development.