By Loretta Martikian
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is launching an online resource with legal and business guidance to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their response to new challenges following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The website also contains a separate section for Georgia that offers country-specific legal and financial guidance in the local language and was developed with financial support from the United Kingdom government through the Good Governance Fund (GGF).
Billed for launch October 8, the event which EBRD is organising jointly with the GGF, the Secretariat of Georgia’s Investors Council, Enterprise Georgia, Caissa Law and Lightspeed Digital to explore the tools that the website offers and discuss the business environment in Georgia and opportunities for business development.
The new website offers expert guidance to help owners and managers of Georgian SMEs to deal with financial challenges, manage relationships with suppliers, customers and employees, and steer through operational and strategic challenges. It also contains useful tools to digitalise businesses as well as to navigate a restructuring process. The platform provides businesses with legal guidance on corporate, employment and insolvency law, areas in which small firms have a strong demand for know-how and information. The website is structured around six modules or entry points:
- Developing your business strategy
- Managing your people successfully
- Running your business successfully
- Taking your business online
- Keeping your business finances healthy
- Restructuring your business finances.
Templates and cases studies support the guidance and help users to apply concepts in their day-to-day operations. No registration is required to use the site.
To produce the guidance for Georgian businesses, the EBRD team worked closely with the Secretariat of the Investors Council, representatives of Enterprise Georgia, and the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, together with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture and the Ministry of Justice.
EBRD Regional Director for the Caucasus, Catarina Bjorlin Hansen said: “The SME sector in Georgia plays a key role in creating employment and contributing to economic growth. This new initiative demonstrates our commitment to helping SMEs succeed in challenging times.”
UK Ambassador to Georgia, Mark Clayton added: “The majority of Georgia’s businesses are micro, small or medium-sized enterprises, providing employment and income in critically important sectors such as tourism and hospitality. This work, therefore, has the potential to be of wide-reaching benefit and comes at a time when Georgia is suffering the effects of another wave of Covid-19 cases. I am proud that the UK could fund this support for the Georgian SME business community.” CEO of Enterprise Georgia, Mikheil Khidureli commented: “We are grateful to the EBRD and the GGF for once again supporting Georgian SMEs. This platform will provide additional resources to small and medium-sized enterprises so they can quickly and easily access information about financial, legal and other issues of interest to them. It is particularly important to mention that the platform has a section with tailored guidelines adopted to Georgian SMEs, which makes the information considerably more relevant and user-friendly.”
