BY KORKMAZ ILKOKUR
RADIKAL- A ministerial-level conference on small enterprises and entrepreneurship organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will start today at Istanbul’s Lutfi Kirdar Congress and Exhibition Center. Government officials, bureaucrats, experts and entrepreneurs from 80 countries will participate in the three-day event, which will start with a symposium; ‘Small- and Medium-Size Enterprises’ [SMEs or KOBIs] Ability to Meet Competition in the Information-Based Economy.’ Methods of increasing SMEs’ access to information will be discussed at the symposium. During its sessions tomorrow and the next day, entrepreneurship education, encouraging women’s entrepreneurship, the international growth of SMEs, how to benefit from information technology and e-commerce, innovative solutions to KOBIs’ financing problems, developing links with large firms, establishing ‘clusters’ among SMEs and finally improving statistics on SMEs will be discussed. For details of the conference, please visit www.oecd.org/sti/smes or www.oecdistanbul.sme2004.org
Turkey’s hosting this event on such an important issue should be congratulated. However, the important thing is to understand the large role played by SMEs in terms of our economic and social development and to determine a sustainable policy appropriate to this role. For this reason, we expect this conference to have results for the determination of this policy, because SMEs are considered a guarantee of economic and social development worldwide. All governments accept the SMEs’ importance and their contributions to economic development, forging social unity, creating jobs and regional improvement. Although there are differences among countries, SMEs constitute 95% of the enterprises within the OECD economies and 60-70% of total private sector employment. However, SMEs have common problems in all countries and this three-day conference will deal with these. We should also find solutions to the problems with our own SMEs as well. The best thing one could do for the SME sector would be to ensure economic stability. Secondly, SMEs’ problem tapping into financial resources should be solved. SME financing policy and related financing institutions should be rethought as well. Thirdly, the number of women entrepreneurs should be increased and finally, SMEs and their owners and representatives shouldn’t hope for help from politics or present themselves as sources for votes.