Memo: New initiatives to assist small enterprises to go international

On the occasion of the third meeting of SME envoys in Brussels on 28 March 2012, Vice President Antonio Tajani announced a series of new and updated initiatives to assist Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to go international.

These include new European Commission projects to support clusters of SMEs in the sectors of clean technologies, renewable energy, bio-technology, and sports goods so SMEs can take full advantage of the strong growth in these sectors in Asia, Latin America, North America and Russia. The EU's China Intellectual Property Rights SME Helpdesk has broadened its range of interactive services and each year enables thousands of EU SMEs to secure and defend their intellectual property in this key market. Furthermore, more than 600 business support centres from the Enterprise Europe Network help SMEs to become successful in Europe and beyond. Finally organisers can register events to promote entrepreneurship during the European SME week in October 2012.

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