Small and Medium Size Enterprise Development (SMED PROJECT II) – Government and Private Sector

Brief Description of Main Deliverables/Outputs:
Overall objectives The overall objective of the project was to support the economic growth and improve the business climate in the country through fostering development and performance of SME and providing support to key sectors of economy. Specific Objectives The specific objectives of the Project were: – To improve the SME operational environment through strengthening the capacity of the Ministry of Economy, the Agency for Entrepreneurship Promotion (AEP) and existing SME support infrastructure in the country. – To contribute to the SME growth through the implementation of the existing measures and projects already developed by the 04MAC01/02/001 EU funded project “Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Development” and development of new appropriate programmes/ interventions, which provide both non-financial and financial services to SME and key SME sectors. – To assist in improvement of the dialogue between the Government and the business sector on enterprise development policies and legislation by strengthening existing and/or building new mechanisms for continuous communication between the public and private sector. General Task Objective The global objective of the assignment was to ease government interference into the day-to-day operation of SMEs/crafts. Specific Task Objectives The specific objectives were (i) to identify the types of inspections and the impact on SMEs/crafts, (ii) to outline the problems faced by SMEs/crafts in respect to inspections and (ii) to find out ways of reducing the administrative burden imposed by inspections on SMEs/crafts taking into account international best practice.

Role on the Assignment

Outputs provided:

Identified types of inspections undertaken by the Market, Labor, Financial, Fire Protection, Sanitary and Ecology Inspectorates;
Analyzed the legal basis and rationale (public interest) for such interventions;
Reviewed the approach chosen (e.g. standard (regular) inspections, ad-hoc inspections (e.g. suspicion of non-compliance), cross-inspections,
Analyzed the burden that was imposed on SMEs/crafts in terms of time invested and costs involved,
Identified reforms undertaken in the past (e.g. central registration, coordination),
Defined the perception of SMEs as voiced by their representative organizations as to degree of interference and transparency of procedures, and
Identified remedies/alternative approaches that would ease the compliance burden of SMEs/crafts taking into account international best practice.

For this purposes the following activities were performed

reviewed the existing regulations,
in consultations with the various Inspectorates determined the approach to inspections and coordination between Inspectorates,
through interviews with relevant private sector organizations (general and sector specific) identified the perception of SMEs/crafts of inspection processes,
Summarized the findings and elaborated on recommendations to be considered for incorporation into the government’s SME Development Programme 2007-2010 taking into account international best practice.