Business news

MINSK, 30 November (BelTA) – Belarus and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have launched a joint project to promote entrepreneurship skills and support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The project was presented during the OECD Eurasia Week 2015 in Paris, BelTA learned from the Belarusian Economy Ministry.

The Belarusian delegation was headed by Deputy Economy Minister Irina Kostevich. The theme for the 2015 edition of the OECD Eurasia Week was “Better Institutions, Interconnectedness and Inclusiveness for Competitiveness in Eurasia”.

The program of the Eurasia Week included the annual meeting of the OECD Eurasia Competitiveness Roundtable. Expert evaluations of the situation in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kazakhstan were presented during the event.

The annual meeting of the OECD steering committees was held as part of the meeting. Its participants were briefed about the joint Belarus-OECD project to promote entrepreneurship and the plans to assess the situation in Belarus in November 2016.

The launch event for the SME Policy Index: Eastern Partner Countries 2016 was held during the OECD Eurasia Week 2015 to present the findings of the Small Business Act for Europe Assessment and discuss key developments and remaining challenges for the business environment – particularly, for SMEs – in Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. It brought together representatives from the OECD, the European Commission, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and European Training Foundation (ETF) as well as key policy stakeholders from the EaP countries.