The Lithuanian Innovation Centre organised a Stakeholder Meeting in Vilnius on 22nd March 2022 to discuss project related activities foreseen for Phase 2.
After a summary of Phase 1 achievements, the participants were presented the final tasks to be implemented by the end of the project, including the organisation of the final dissemination event and workshop. The stakeholders will be invited to this event and possibly one of the representatives from Lithuania could deliver a presentation related to the transport sector in the Country.
A session of the meeting was then dedicated to discuss potential Good Practices in terms of business support offered to Transport SMEs specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic. The best two would be described in depth with the assistance and contribution of the stakeholders, recorded on the Interreg Europe website and included in a final report that will be led and coordinated by Lithuanian Innovation Centre.
It was noted that probably there were not specific or targeted support measures for the transport sector, as the majority of the support offered was of general nature, without targeting specific economic activities. Despite this, the following business support measures that potentially could be of interest for transport companies were identified:
- E-commerce business model COVID-19, a measure dedicated to support small and medium sized enterprises with reduced business income or turnover to help them digitise their business management processes (e. g. move commerce to electronic space; integrate e-shop with business management system; streamline supply chain process management; meet other needs for digitisation). A total of €40 million was allocated for the implementation of the measure; projects received a funding of 75%, ranged between €10,000 and €40,000.
- Non-refundable subsidies for companies affected by COVID-19 pandemic, based on the amount of taxes the specific company paid the previous year.
Lithuanian Innovation Centre will discuss these initiatives with the Lead Partner and investigate them more in depth.