Regional Meeting on SMEs Service Centers
june 21 to 23, 2016. Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Honduras will be the site of the first Regional Encounter of MSME Service Centers. The Centers’ directors and advisors, Central American and Dominican government authorities in charge of promoting micro and small enterprises, international cooperation agencies and other sectors will discuss mechanisms for supporting MSMEs in the region.
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The Regional Center for MSME Promotion (CENPROMYPE); the Central American Integration System (SICA); the Honduran Ministry for Economic Development (SDE); and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) are organizing this important SICA regional event with support from the European Union. The purpose of the event is to provide a space for dialogue, formation and exchange of experiences among the operators of the MSME Service Centers and their strategic partners in order to strengthen their capacities for management and provision of business services that can contribute to the productive development of MSMEs.
Also in the agenda of the event, the inaugural ceremony of the Initiative "Business Ideas Development and MSMES Acceleration in Central America" (DINAMICA) will be carried out. The main purpose of the Iniciative is to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and to finance MSMES in the Central American region. This Initiative will be implemented by CABEI, with support of the Financial Cooperation of the Federal Republic of Germany (KfW) and of the European Union, through its Latin America Investment Facility (LAIF). "
The dialogue, training and interchange sessions will focus on four strategic axes:
- Sustainability and management of MSME Service Centers,
- Strengthening MSME business services
- Creativity and innovation in Development Services for MSMEs and
- Institutional dialogue and network building
The Regional Encounter is aimed at directors of the MSME Service Centers, their advisors, public officials involved in business development and financial services, universities, municipalities, NGOs, businesses in the social sector, professionals involved in business consulting and professionals interested in establishing business development services.
The countries’ integration with respect to MSME promotion efforts is having a positive impact on the region. Regional MSMEs attended by the Service Centers have reported a US$28.6 million increase in sales according to the 2015 Report on MSME Service Centers in Central America and the Dominican Republic. In Honduras, there are 11 Centers operating in an alliance between the public and private sectors and academia; they are denominated Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Business Development Centers. The regionalization of the MSME Service Centers has been supported by the US State Department, the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Spanish International Cooperation Agency, the German GIZ Cooperation Program and its Facility program, the Republican of China (Taiwan), the European Union, CABEI and the German KFW Development Bank.
These regionalization efforts have fostered learning and innovation that permit the continuous improvement of the model by creating permanent spaces for regional interchange, such as this first Regional Encounter.
