Business Opportunities for MSMEs in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia
The President of BUSINESSMED and Vice President for Internationalization of Confindustria, Mrs. Barbara Beltrame Giacomello, launched the kick-off meeting of the project on November 24th, with the participation of high-level profiles, among which the Union for the Mediterranean, the Tunisian Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation and consortium members coming from 6 Euromed countries. The INVESTMED project aims at supporting new, sustainable business opportunities for young people and women in three Mediterranean Partner Countries: Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia.
Mediterranean MSMEs, and due to actual circumstances Lebanese ones in particular, face important challenges in terms of competitiveness, sustainability, internationalization and capacity to innovate while urgent measures are needed to tackle common environmental challenges and exploit the potential of both natural and cultural heritage to contribute to sustainable growth and economic development.
Against this backdrop, the INVESTEMD project aims at addressing both economic and environmental challenges, by supporting new, sustainable business opportunities for young people and women in three Mediterranean Partner Countries: Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia.
During her intervention during the press conference, Natalia Menhall, Consultant and Partner at Beyond Reform and Development (BRD) / Irada Group Lebanon declared: “Our role in this project as an institution that has expertise in the region is to design the guidebook on IPR and commercialization so we will be in charge of outreach and mapping of legal frameworks and LTA in Lebanon. We will also collaborate with other member of the consortium on trainings.”
INVESTMED will impact Lebanese MSMEs, start-ups and recently established enterprises where staff will be trained and coached to become more sustainable and competitive and financially supported via an open competition. Specific business incubation services will also be established for sustainable start-ups while relevant public authorities will benefit from capacity building and exchange of best practices to facilitate access to new (domestic and cross-border) markets while creating new business partnerships via the INVESTMED support scheme.
INVESTMED is coordinated by BUSINESSMED, the Union of Mediterranean Confederations of Enterprises, as part of a consortium of 9 partners and 4 associates representing different Countries of the Euro-Mediterranean Region coming from Egypt, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Spain and Tunisia.
The INVESTMED project has a duration of 30 months and is co-funded by the European Union under the ENI CBC Mediterranean Sea Basin Programme 2014-2020.