Co-financing promotional activities of SMEs Internationalisation Consortia

Emilia-Romagna has been providing co-financing to the activities of export consortia since the Regional Programme for Productive Activities (RPPA) 2003 - 2005, through dedicated call for proposals. Applicants are required to submit specific projects for export promotion on selected markets. Since 2013, this call was framed into measure 4.2 of RPPA 2013 - 2015 and adjusted to take into account modifications introduced to the national law on export consortia, which have become internationalisation consortia. Each Consortium operates using a multiannual program broken down into annual specific projects: this allows making annual adjustments to unforeseen events on the target market. Usually the annual project covers different actions in order to meet needs of the companies involved. It isn’t necessary that SMEs adhering to a consortium participate to all activities, nor that the all companies participate to the same action. The Consortium ensures companies participation in b2b, outgoing and incoming missions, exhibitions, international events. This usually brings wide foreign relationships that are useful for companies or for the consortium or both. It can happen, for example, that the Consortium is called for a conference to explain what is it does and what and who it represents; but also it can happen that a single company has market opportunities that it is worth developing with other companies, especially if it is about a new market.