OREANDA-NEWS. June 10, 2010. As part of the Russian-Italian Group on Industrial Districts and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ meeting, under the auspices of the Russian-Italian Forum-Dialogue within the framework of civil societies, State Corporation ‘Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)’ held a round-table discussion “Support for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Russia’s and Italy’s Business Experience”.

Management Board Member – Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman Mikhail Kopeikin was the round-table discussion mediator from the Russian side and Member of the Italian Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CONFAPI) and President of Unionmeccanica Marco Nardi – from the Italian side.

In attendance of the round table discussion were representatives of Russian and Italian government authorities, regional administrations, financial institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises.

In the course of the discussion, its participants discussed issues of Vnesheconombank’s activity in supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and identified prospects for cooperation between Russia and Italy in this sector. The participants placed particular emphasis on the need to step up cooperation in supporting SMEs in the innovation sector.

The participants stressed the need for using Italian experience in establishing industrial districts with a high concentration of small and medium-sized production-oriented enterprises where an overwhelming majority of workers are local residents. They specified the following advantages of such districts: facilitated information exchange, information process acceleration, privileges offered through using funds of regional budgets, optimization of production facilities’ types and sizes, reduced transaction costs, improved trust between district members ant etc.

Moreover, the participants discussed opportunities for implementing joint projects in providing financial support for SMEs under the framework agreement signed in 2009 on providing financial resources worth up to 100 million euros to Russian banks to subsequently finance SMEs by Italian Bank Intesa Sanpaolo SpA against Vnesheconombank’s guarantees.

Mikhail Kopeikin said  that the current objective was to search for projects for Russian-Italian cooperation in financing SMEs. To this end, Mikhail Kopeikin made a proposal to establish a working group to deal with this issue.

In 2002 ,a Working Group on Industrial Districts and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises was set up on the Russian President’s and the Italian Prime Minister’s Imitative as part of the Intergovernmental Russian-Italian Council for Economic, Industrial and Monetary Cooperation.

The Russian-Italian Forum-Dialogue within the Framework of civil societies was established in 2004 on Vladimir Putin’s and Silvio Berlusconi’s initiative. The Forum aims to form new promising lines of cooperation, develop an infrastructure of bilateral relations at a non-governmental level in economy, science and education, cultural and humanitarian ties within the framework of nongovernmental and civic organizations.