On October 26, 2018, a seminar “New Opportunities and Technologies for Attracting Financing for Small and Medium-Sized Entrepreneurship (SME)” was held at the Sumy State University’s Congress Center.
The event was organized by NGO “Council of Young Scientists” at the Sumy Business Information Center within the framework of the EU4Business initiative of the European Union, with a grant support from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The seminar began with an introductory lecture on “The European Experience of Banking Financing for SMEs and its Importance for Ukraine”, which was delivered to the participants by Levente Kovacs, General Secretary of the Hungarian Banking Association.
Natalia Evchenko, Head of the Secretariat of the Reanimation Reform Package (RPR), consultant on writing projects for the EU structural funds (specializing in the countries of Scandinavia and Germany) made a presentation on the “European Instruments for Grant Financing of Small and Medium Business”.
The report on “The Importance of Monetary Policy for Expanding Bank Lending. NBU Estimates on Prospects for Ukraine’s Economy Development” was presented by Alona Zakutny, chief economist in monetary policy and economic analysis department of the National Bank of Ukraine.
Igor Cherniavsky, Director of PrivatBank Sumy Branch, delivered a presentation at the seminar on “Problems and Prospects of Bank Lending to SMEs in the Sumy Region”.
Regarding the “Opportunities for Cooperation with the EBRD for Small and Medium Business” it was interesting to listen to the presentation of Timur Khalilov, an analyst of the Banking and SME Development Group of the EBRD.
Dmitry Dukhno, Head of regional sales for small and micro-businesses, Sumy branch of Raiffeisen Bank Aval JSC, informed the audience about “Opportunities and Conditions for Attracting Financing by Small and Medium Business in 2019”.
In the second part, the format of the event provided for the work of a round table and a workshop on writing grant proposals by SMEs representatives.
At a round table with the participation of experts, the leadership of regional departments of banks, representatives of local authorities, heads of business associations, business owners, heads of financial departments of enterprises, there was a lively discussion on the topic “Practical aspects of attracting financing for SMEs in Sumy: problems and opportunities”.
The workshop on “Writing a grant application by small and medium-sized businesses: preparing a project using the SMI Instrument Horizon 2020 as an example” was of great importance for the participants and was conducted by Natalya Evchenko, a consultant on writing projects in EU structural funds.
The participants of the seminar noted that they received many useful tips and practical tools for finding and attracting financing for their own business development.
