Portugal can become the 6th most important country in the EU!
RECOVERY: Large corporations and the state are slow to change. Flexibility/creativity/speed, is key in SMEs nowadays. Other countries have gone through a similar situation. How did they overcome it?
SIMPLEX: Almost all business associations, SMEs and start-ups in all countries criticize governments for too much bureaucracy. There are many thousands employees, which, to justify their wages, invent complex forms and useless evidence in the digitized world. To over-come a serious crisis, Brazil created SIMPLEX in 2004, suggested by SME business associations, such as clothing, footwear, local commerce. The criteria for granting of soft loans, the procedures for evaluating requests and their judgment were made mainly by the associations. In the decade of the -70 also the imports had to be approved by the associations.
Hungary, in order to develop business after the end of communism, created an IAPMEI with only 5 experts who, in a maximum of one week, signed low value checks for each phase of projects approved by the local business association.
Distant universities and NGOs, even from abroad, got a symbolic value to evaluate them after each phase. Associations/enterprises then received the 2nd, then the 3rd trench, etc. Details of this system, which made it possible to create 900k SMEs in 3 years, are in the handbook ‘A GRANDE PEQUENA EMPRESA’.
Sweden has delegated economic growth policy to local business associations. In the branch Working Groups there is a government representative who coordinates, suggests, but does not vote. He takes the suggestions to the final wording of the minister responsible for the program, who then decides on the use of funds. Simple and fast.
To increase exports and better compete with imports, creating jobs, there is the Exportradet, linked to the Confederation of Enterprises.
“Let those with extensive business experience, such as consultants and branch associations lead the bazooka”
In the USA, crowdfunding supported by NGOs and corporate funds for start-up and SMEs allowed the rapid economic recovery that today promises to import more from the EU and thus create a great market for our rehab. In the business world, flexibility, speed and now customization are vital.
Many consumers value something that they know is better for them, than the savings of a few euros; like food. In many branches the timing for companies is seasonal. It is like in nature, something is planted in the spring to harvest in the autumn. If bureaucracy stops the $ until autumn, planting will have little or no result.
Isn't it better to pay the 40,000 bureaucrats but let the bazooka be decided by those with extensive business experience, such as consultants and branch associations? Entrepreneurs say that by continuing ‘more of the same’ the bazooka will not result in the urgent structural improvements we need. Nor will competitiveness increase. We now depend on tourism and real estate speculation. When it comes, it creates corruption and distortions in land use plans; leaving it creates a huge crisis in construction and employment.
