PRESS ARTICLE
Subject: Instruments that enhance exports – during the Covid-19 pandemic extension
Partner(s): Business Development Friesland, Municipality of Leeuwarden
Location: Budapest, Hungary (multilateral meeting)
BUDAPEST – In liaison with the Interreg project of UpgradeSME, the project partners from six represented countries could finally meet each other again during the closing-off meeting at the banks of the Danube river.
During this meeting, each and every stakeholder could bring up and discuss their GPs (Good Practice policy instruments) regarding exports and to what extend the instruments positively influenced exports during the corona crisis.
For the Frisian part, we’ve definitely had challenges during the covid-19 pandemic, such as acquiring new partners and businesses, finding substitutes for trading missions and the fact that lack of digitalisation became a bigger issue. Next to covid-19 we’ve also challenged transportation issues in the sense of the Ever Green ship in the Suez channel and the Russian-Ukrainian war going on.
The GPs concentrated in the Frisian context, are based on finance and knowledges instruments. What has to be noted is that the financial policies driven in this part of the Netherlands are based on the green and digital shift which has to be made.
An example of this could be found in the SME and SIB voucher of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. A company called Deepgrooves develop and produce the increasingly popular long play records which they manufacture in a circular way, so with the least impact on the environment. Thanks to the vouchers, Deepgrooves could hire external advice. Nowadays, the U.S. is their biggest customer market.
Another good practice policy, knowledge-wise, can be found in the World Trade Center Leeuwarden, together with the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. This delegacy organised digital trading missions for high-quality matchmaking. They do this by screening participating companies for relevant questions and potential matches. An example of this is Tapp.online, this company was screened and seen as an high-valuable asset in the world market, making circular smart paper insights. Which can be used for measuring shocks, temperature and humidity levels during transports of goods.
Regarding the questions asked during this multilateral meeting, it seemed that the GPs in our region are clear and productive in terms of improving exports for our local SMEs. As Dutch delegation, we’ve acquired imported knowledge from other stakeholders in terms of how to organize and how to market certain projects were different sectors are connected to one another, such as but not limited to the example of Guimaraes.
We thank our partners for the cooperation the last couple of years and look forward to work together in future times.
Team Netherlands
Business Development Friesland | Municipality of Leeuwarden
