STIMULATING AND SUPPORTING NEW BUSINESS IN IRELAND

Successful Event held to assist Internationalisation of SME's in the Region

By James Donlon, September 26, 2006

A two-day international exchange event, aimed at assisting SMEs to internationalise their business activities, was hosted recently in Galway. It was formally opened by the President of Galway Chamber of Commerce and Industry, David Niland, in the Great Southern Hotel. Speaking at the event, Mr Niland, welcomed the visitors from participating regions and stressed the importance of such events to support businesses in accessing international market opportunities.
The event, was organised by WESTBIC and included partners from Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Germany and Greece. The project, entitled INNOVINT, is part-funded by the EU through the Interreg IIIC programme.
The business-exchange event comprised of business meetings between SMEs from the BMW region of Ireland and enterprises/experts from the partner regions resulted in the creation of many potential international links for Irish enterprises. This was followed by a Finance Seminar, which provided the INNOVINT partners with information on the various financial tools available in Ireland and abroad to assist the internationalisation process.
The seminar began with an overview of some financial tools which used in Ireland to facilitate the internationalisation of SME’s. Guest speakers included Seamus Bree of Enterprise Ireland who spoke about how Enterprise Ireland supports internationalisation, Pat Fahy of InterTrade Ireland who presented the Acumen programme which supports Cross-Border trade, Gert O’Rourke from WESTBIC who discussed the new Business Angel Partnership and Eric Reed from Enterprise Equity who provided information on the seed/venture capital schemes that exist in Ireland. Other inputs were provided by international experts from France, Germany and Switzerland who gave an overview of the particular tools that work well in their regions.
As a result of the event, a number of potential international linkages are being pursued by Irish enterprises aimed at developing their businesses further in collaboration with international partners. Follow-up support is available to these enterprises to facilitate the internationalisation process.