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IFC Helps the Gomel Entrepreneurs to establish contacts within business community and with the authorities and the media The meeting of the regional business community was initiated by the «Edinstvo» Association. The members of the association – notable businessmen of the Gomel region — operate in the key economic sectors including industry, construction, trade and services. Business breakfast was also attended by representatives of the Division for Entrepreneurship of the Economy Department of the Gomel Regional Executive Committee, Head of the Division for Entrepreneurship of the Gomel City Executive Committee, staff of the Gomel branches of Priorbank, Belgasprom–bank and PriorLeasing Company. The detailed guidelines «Where can you receive financial support for small business» was drafted specially for business breakfast. The guidelines listed potential sources of financing, provided a detailed information about the required documents, time framework for consideration of applications, amounts of loans and partial compensation and covered many other aspects. Dissemination of IFC information bulletins at the meetings of businessmen has already become a tradition. Presentation of the Gomel Rotary Club was organized at the business breakfast. Rotary International is the oldest association of businessmen; its global network consists of more than 29 000 clubs in 163 countries. The Rotary major objective is to encourage services to the society as a basis for constructive entrepreneurship. Its slogan is formulated as «Service Above Self». Traditional activities of the Rotary Club include support to the elderly and the disabled, youth programs support and city improvement efforts. — Entrepreneurs do need informal meetings, — said Irina Shemshenya, IFC Project Coordinator in the Gomel region. — We also organize roundtables, consultations and workshops covering various issues which are important for the Gomel businessmen. At the end of June we held an important roundtable «Affiliation of agricultural farms with industrial enterprises». We invited Georgy Dashkevich, Deputy Head of the Gomel Regional Executive Committee and other officials. At present 77 out of 377 agricultural farms are loss–making. The regional executive committee has decided that 22 of them should be affiliated with commercial companies. Local businessmen had many questions and IFC–sponsored roundtable was intended to give answers. In April IFC received a delegation of the Swedish businessmen who came to Gomel to establish contacts with the Belarusian entrepreneurs. In winter the IFC press club celebrated its third anniversary. Quite often a new regulation affecting business climate in the region becomes a reason for a meeting (which is usually held once a month) of journalists from local and central media with businessmen and officials. — Economic subjects are always acute because people would like to know how they can change their livelihood, — said Irina Shemshenya. — During the first year the press club focused mainly on explaining economic principles to journalists and we invited officials and entrepreneurs to participate in discussions of market economy concepts. Now we try not only to find an information occasion; we ask out invitees to prepare a story and instead of being just one of the audience he or she could give a bright example which journalists can use to illustrate the subject. Thus we brighten up the press club meetings. For example, one of our recent subjects «Associations of entrepreneurs: honorary members devoid of authority or equal participants» initiated extensive discussions and feedback. We finally concluded that business associations are needed as they help to establish contacts and to maintain efficient collaboration. By the way, a website of the Gomel–based association «Edinstvo» developed with IFC support will soon appear in the Internet. * IFC Project «Development of Small and Medium Business Associations in Belarus» was launched on 1 October 2002 with financial support of the Swedish Department for International Cooperation Development (SIDA).
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