Eleventh issue of international conference of small and medium enterprises held in Moldovan capital

Chisinau, 23 November /MOLDPRES/ - The eleventh issue of the international conference of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), titled, Industry 4.0, was held in Chisinau today. Those over 350 participants in the event analyzed the results achieved in this sector and steps which are to be undertaken in the long run.  

The acting director general of the Organization for Small and Medium Enterprises Sector Development (ODIMM), Petru Gurgurov, has said that it was an imperative for Moldova to adopt the new way of development of the entrepreneurship and to orient itself towards digitalization and automation of the production processes. According to Gurgurov, the industry 4.0 means optimization of the entire value chain in the production process.    

The general state secretary at the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry, Iulia Costin, said that Moldova was facing huge challenges of digitalization and innovation, as the SMEs from the country are less automated and equipped with robots against the ones from developed countries. In Moldova, the SMEs account for 98 per cent of all the enterprises registered and involves about 62 per cent of the labour force. Their contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is of more than 31 per cent, against the development countries, where this rate is of 50 per cent. In this respect, Iulia Costin specified that the sector further needed support.  

Head of the European Union Delegation in Moldova Peter Michalko said that EU would continue to back the SMEs from Moldova and urged the authorities to carry out reforms in more sectors, such as: cutting business costs, justice, improving the business environment, etc.    

“We will create a friendly business environment in Moldova with the implementation of these reforms and through joint efforts,” Peter Michalko stressed.  

World Bank Country Manager for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine Anna Akhalkatsi  said that 6,000 SMEs were annually set up in Moldova, with four out of five jobs generated by this sector.

The conference ended with a ceremony on awarding prizes to the winners of the national contests, The Best Entrepreneur from SMEs Sector and SME – Model of Social Accountability.