STRENGTHENING THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP CULTURE AND COLLABORATION IN THE ELIGIBLE PROGRAMME AREA

Acronym	STRENGTHEN
Project Number – MIS	5070090
Priority axis	1 - A Competitive and Innovative Cross-Border Area
Investment priorities	3a - Promoting entrepreneurship, in particular by facilitating the economic exploitation of new ideas and fostering the creation of new firms, including through business incubators
Intervention fields	066. Advanced support services for SMEs and groups of SMEs (including management, marketing and design services)
Call	6th CALL FOR PROJECT PROPOSALS
Lead Beneficiary	CHAMBER OF SERRES
Beneficiaries	CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY-BLAGOEVGRAD EUROPEAN INFORMATIONAL AND CONSULTANCY CENTER-BG REGIONS LIFELONG LEARNING CENTER ΟF REGION ΟF CENTRAL MACEDONIASA
Start Date	Apr 13, 2021
End Date	Jul 12, 2023
Budget	527.900,00 €
ERDF Contribution	448.715,00 €
National Contribution	79.185,00 €
Website	https://strengthen-project.eu/

The development of extroversion and exports is one of the main levers in order to overcome the intense problems created by the economic crisis and the prolonged recession in both countries. In this context, the initiative for strengthening the entrepreneurship culture and collaboration in the eligible programme area, aims to highlight, promote and enhance the extroversion of quality Greek and Bulgarian products and services by stimulating their export activity, upgrading their general international trade, their international networking, the search for partners, etc. The project idea was initially developed by the PPs, and especially the two Chambers in Serres and Blagoevgrad together with the LLC of Region of Central Macedonia SA and the EICC-BG regions. Partners had informal meetings to discuss the details of the project proposal having in mind common cross border problems and challenges to be tackled, namely: 1. SMEs encounter resource constraints, that seem particularly prevalent among smaller, newly established firms. Finding business finance is always a challenge that the proposed project will try to overcome, 2. One of the main challenges is that SMEs often lack experience and information on foreign countries and markets. Businesses are built on networks of investors, partners and team members. That may be challenging for those with little networking experience, 3. Inadequate human development and skills has been always a major barrier and especially many smes do not have specialised staff to deal with exports and quality management. The proposed project provides a solution to this bottleneck with the provision of training seminars in the field of Export Trade and Food Safety & Quality Management, 4. Smes in the cross-border area have been rather slow in expanding their activity to the other side of the border; the borderline remains a barrier and business activity is often limited to local boundaries. It is challenging for the proposed project “STRENGTHEN” to strengthen business stability and development which is one of the ultimate goals of the thematic objective 03 and investment priority 3a of the INTERREG V-A Greece – Bulgaria 2014 2020 Cooperation Programme.