ArmInfo. SME sector in Armenia has great development potential, despite the small scale of local market this sector is quite viable, Head of EBRD Yerevan Resident Office Mark Davis stated on October 26 at the opening of two-days trainings on "SME Finances". The trainings are aimed at raising professional skills of local consulting companies for providing more qualitative services to small and medium enterprises.
According to the Head of EBRD Yerevan Resident office in order to ensure due environment for SME it is necessary to first and foremost raise the level of knowledge of consulting companies, which will be able to contribute to further development of the field, develop derivative securities market and, most importantly, to set the main directions of the field development. Attracting financial funds into the sector is also very important according to Mark Davis. In this light he expressed opinion that certain group of SMEs have access to financial funds via receiving assistance from various local and international lending institutions, while for the others these sources are restricted. IPO or issue of bonds might become a possible instrument for attracting funds in his opinion. However, it is too early to discuss this issue on the current stage.
According to Tigran Aghabekyan, EBRD Small Business Support National Programme Manager, starting from 2011 consulting assistance was provided to small and medium enterprises within 1200 projects, for the implementation of which 9 mln EUR was allocated. As a result of this assistance they received around 133 mln EUR. Aghabekyan noted that more than 90% of the projects were successful, while 70% of enterprises registered 8% growth of turnover in average. 65% of enterprises opened new job places.
To recall, on October 24 Armenia and the EU announced the launch of the EU4Business Week in Armenia. Running from 24 to 28 October 2016, the EU4Business Week will highlight the EU support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through series of events and include other activities facilitating private-public dialogue for the benefit of businesses both in the Eastern partner countries and in Armenia.
