SMEs Local Development in a Globalized World

(live-PR.com) - WUSME INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY 24-26 NOVEMBER, 2011

WELCOME MESSAGE
OF WUSME PRESIDENT GIAN FRANCO TERENZI

Honorable Ministers,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear friends,

I am pleased to welcome you to the Second WUSME International Conference, an event which aims at being an occasion for all those who deal with SMEs and Crafts, to meet and exchange internationally.

With the common belief that our future will be

 

determined by the vitality and capacity of small and medium-sized businesses, we are gathered, here today, to share the knowledge and experience we gained in the field and to examine the difficulties, challenges and opportunities that SMEs are to face nowadays.

The strong growth that small businesses have succeeded all over the world demonstrate that they have all requirements and capabilities necessary to contribute to a cohesive and sustainable economic recovery, both in industrialized countries as well as in less privileged ones.

SMEs have, in fact, represented, anywhere in the world, the key for growth and employment, leaded to a reduction of economic disparities, promoted social cohesion and transnational cooperation. These capabilities need to be supported by a strong political will in an institutional framework designed to make a change worldwide.

We need to support this path of growth by providing concrete answers to small and medium-sized enterprises locally so that they can be competitive in an intelligent, supportive and sustainable globally.

For this reason, we need to act in support of SMEs similarly of the most industrialized and less privileged areas, taking into account their different needs.

With reference to the most industrialized areas, we need to:

• recognize the vital role of SMEs and Crafts in the economic, social and cultural development locally and globally;

• improve the environment in which businesses operate, simplifying the administrative, legislative, financial procedure in order to maintain their vitality, efficiency and continuity over time.

• encourage young entrepreneurs to invest in the “manual” businesses and craft skills, still needed but likely to disappear for the lack of change between generations;

• re-evaluate and enhance the crafts and purely "manual" professions, providing a good education, equalized internationally and rewarded financially;

• create the conditions necessary to establish collaborative relationships with developing countries.


With reference to the less privileged areas, we need, on the other hand, to:

• provide the drive necessary to create a new business;

• create the conditions for safety, health and social security of small entrepreneurs;

• promote initiatives aiming at the training of new professions and entrepreneurs;

• establish a network of cooperation with the most industrialized areas.

In both cases, we need to focus on the reality of micro businesses, because when we speak of Small and Medium Enterprises, in reality, we especially refer to the Craft and Micro Enterprise, which in Europe account for 91% of all business activities.

"Think small first" is the principle adopted by the European Community under the "Small Business Act," which tends to put the small and micro enterprise right at the heart.

Even in developing countries, micro-enterprise is the only real tool which is able to deliver, in time, the "economic democracy" needed, playing a social function.

For the "human scale" environment, for the system of relationships, everywhere the small business not only helps increasing the economic well-being, but more generally improving the living conditions of the local community in which operates, fostering the protection and cohesion of the family unit, as primary social institution in any society.

This is why, as WUSME, we are strongly committed to create the conditions to ensure a direct contact among those who act as entrepreneurs in their own interest, because we believe that a direct relationship, first of all human, is at the base of any economic cooperation even today and probably now more ever.

As WUSME, we set ourselves the aim of creating opportunities and occasions that do not end in themselves, but can lead to concrete results and actions for the benefit of SMEs and Crafts worldwide.

Our commitment and effort to combine and share ideas, knowledge and experience is not a marginal issue, as it allows us to lay the groundwork and give life to many other opportunities for exchange and sharing, for our mutual growth.

As we offer our experiences and we know what risks and efforts are faced in business, we can help others to avoid the danger of failure and ensure the basic living conditions, not yet present everywhere in the world.

As we strive for all this to be achieved, we must insist in the action, because we know how difficult it is to support those who have made the choice to work independently as entrepreneurs, to create their own activity.

Our choice is determined by the strong conviction that the institutions need to understand a basic idea: that giving support and acting in favor of those who by choice are self-employed, is the opportunity to promote economic growth and social cohesion, protect the family as primary social group, support the process of economic democracy and enrich the local communities in a distributed manner.

What are we to put in place?
We must ensure that the banking and financial system, which today is at the center of the global stream and has often penalized small business owners, is to recognize the vital role which could be played by small businesses in the economic recovery and take proper action by adopting new or renewed funding instruments in their favor.

I think at the "credit trust". This tool could be taken, again, into consideration.
The risk involved is generally limited because the small business, especially the family owned, is prone to regularly pay and honor its debt.

We strive to involve more and more the institutions and governments in focusing their attention on the current and real issues faced by SMEs and Crafts today and sharing our path.

I must say, with regret, that in the course of the many international conferences and missions I attended, often declarations in favor of SMEs have been conveyed, even by important politicians, rarely followed by concrete deeds.

Our organization has the opportunity and duty to defend our common efforts and to receive growing help and awareness by the different institutions and politics.