The 3rd Stakeholder Meeting in Romania was held on 22nd November 2019 in the Head Office of the Regional Development Agency South-West Oltenia in Craiova.
The meeting started with an update of the project implementation progress since the previous meeting in May 2019. This was followed by a presentation about Intellectual Property Commercialisation and the current status of Transport SMEs in South West Oltenia Region.
A session was dedicated to Good Practices in the Transport sector. In particular, an interesting example from Latvia was showed: this referred to a training programme for SMEs for the development of innovations and digital technologies. In the first stage of the project (2012-2015), a total of 1446 SMEs were involved and 3249 SME managers were trained, in 20 municipalities in Latvia.
The last part of the meeting was dedicated to Financing opportunities for SMEs. In particular, a Call for projects funded by ROP, the Investment Priority 2.2 (Support to setting-up and expanding of advanced production capabilities and development of services for SMEs) was showed. At the same time, it was outlined the need for further development of funding and support schemes in this area for local and regional Transport SMEs. The region’s financing framework for Transport SMEs has a direct impact on the region's economic growth and a potential for creating new jobs.