Client: Ministry of Economy, Slovakia
Country: Slovakia
Period: Jan 2003 -Jan 2005

The project purpose has been defined as: Strengthening the Ministry of Economy and NADSME so that they will be able to further develop a Slovak SME policy that paves the way for a more entrepreneurial society by creating more opportunities and fewer obstacles for entrepreneurship. Project purpose and project activities should be seen with the framework of accession of Slovakia to the EU, i.e. implementation of the acquis communautaire.

Essential interventions are:

• Improve the system of data collection;
• Building SME statistics;
• Monitor the business environment;
• Pre-policy analysis to improve policymaking.

In order to foster local ‘project ownership’, and to stimulate smooth integration of local expertise and European experience, ECORYS-NEI has established three task forces in which Slovakian and European experts will closely cooperate to bring about the specific project results.

In addition to learning by doing (i.e. identifying data sources, comparative analysis, policy analysis etc, explicit training elements are foreseen:

• Courses, seminars, and working groups
• Study tour to Western Europe to meet SME researchers and policy makers.
• Public conferences.

Services provided:

• Identifying data sources
• Building SME statistics
• Monitoring business environment
• Scenario analysis
• Comparative analysis (Slovakia – EU)
• Improving data handling facilities at NADSME
• Pre-policy analysis
• (Financial) impact analysis
• Monitoring