Competitive Economy Through Cross Border Export Support to Sub-Saharan Africa, India and UAE Countries

Programme 2014 - 2020 INTERREG V-A Finland - Estonia - Latvia - Sweden (Central Baltic)

Date of latest update: 2024-03-26

Description

Description (EN):

Sub-Saharan Africa, India and UAE are growing markets and have enormous business potential for technology companies - especially in the fields of Viable Citizen Solutions and Intelligent Transportation Systems. At the same time they are extremely complicated markets to enter for SME-s of CB region. There is strong potential in facing market entry challenges JOINTLY and use the export possibilities of the SME-s in the best way through CB cross-border cooperation. Some examples why cooperation is necessary: Entering eMesai target markets is expensive in time and budget wise and therefore JOINT activities for marketing, educating the clients and the cluster SME-s is needed for increasing the export success possibilities; Sharing experiences, market leads and key resources for enabling deals in the target markets between CB SMEs helps to do the export more effectively; In eMesai target markets creating trust takes a lot of time and therefore the CB SME-s can use each others positive image in partner countries in order to "warm the market" also for other companies in the region; Joint marketing is a great tool for making the SME-s look bigger and more trustworthy and through that they can open doors which they can not open alone. Main objective of eMesai is to increase the CB SME-s export to Sub-Saharan Africa, India and UAE countries through JOINT export competence building and JOINLTY applying export support tools among SME business networks. The main target markets of the current project are: Sub-Saharan Africa exept: Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana, Kongo, Guinea, Namibia, Sambia, Uganda United Arab Emirates (UAE) exept Dubai India regions Karnataka, Maharasahtra, Delhi, Telangana. eMesai supports at least 50 SME-s export and achieves at least 9 new sales in target markets.

Achievements (EN):

eMesai supported SME's entering the Sub-Saharan, Indian and UAE markets. The project supported SMEs' efforts to enter the Sub-Saharan, India and UAE markets to reach the main objective of increasing the Central Baltic SMEs' export to these regions/countries. This was done by 3 strong CB ICT clusters from Sweden, Estonia and Latvia through joint export competence building and jointly applying export support tools. During the project 1 sale and 1 MoU was signed. In addition, more than 10 sales and potential sales after the end of the project were recorded. The project supported altogether more than 200 SMEs’ export efforts. As main activities of the project following were implemented: 2 joint export seminars (Tallinn & Riga) and 1 export webinar; 2 joint study trips on joint marketing (Tallinn & Riga); 2 joint webinars on: how to participate in World Bank tenders and how to participate in UN tenders in African countries/India; 3 joint trade missions to regional events/world congresses (Transform Africa Summit and ITS World Congresses), 1 joint trade mission to the UAE and 3 webinars to prepare for these missions. Raising awareness seminars about digitalization benefits of the local stakeholders/potential clients at e-Governance conferences in Tallinn in 2019, 2020 and 2021 online, EEN Sweden online matchmaking event and at a webinar on how to do business in India digitally Local market expert service in India and in the UAE for altogether 16 SMEs from 3 countries, updates of business profiles and solution descriptions for Estonian SMEs for fitting better for the target markets and participation in the Business Support to EU-India Policy dialogue project events for specific Swedish SMEs with personal invitations. The significant part of the project implementation fell to the Covid pandemic, and the project had to adopt with new circumstances. The partnership was successful in that.

Website: http://centralbaltic.eu/

Expected Results (EN): R1.3. Number of cluster co-operations exporting to new markets

Expected Outputs (EN):

eMesai is clearly contributing to the programme result indicator "R 1.3 Number of cluster co-operations exporting to new markets" since its main outcome are 9 new market entries of ICT sector SME-s in the field of viable citizen solutions and intelligent transportation systems to target markets. By the end of the project the joint efforts of the project partners of eMesai have created an CB ecosystem and new JOINT model for cross-border export support for ICT sector SMEs into target markets. As a result the participating SMEs are familiar with the target markets, they have access to local networks, they have experiences in JOINT and cross-company marketing between the CB SME-s in target markets and are used to sharing their leads and know-how also with the other CB companies. As a result of eMesai at least 50 SMEs have been supported in exporting their products/services to new markets - at least 25 of them have increased export competencies and 25 have additionally received export support services to enter the target markets. In the end at least 9 new sales to target export markets will be achieved. With eMesai programme-relevant partnerships are strengthened in the CB between the clusters, the SMEs and other business support organisations (Enterprise Europe Network, Chambers of Commerce and others), who will work JOINTLY to support export and succeed with project outputs and results. Meanwhile the project amplifies cross-disciplinary subjects and contributes to social, economic and ecological sustainability through digitalization of services and businesses. In the long term the developed ecosystem and cross-border cooperation model strengthens the possibilities of SMEs in the CB to become leaders in exports on new markets. As a result more SMEs will be established in the target markets, SMEs continue to expand into neighboring regions and are prepared for global development in a larger extent.

Thematic information

ICT and digital society Clustering and economic cooperation SME and entrepreneurship

Specific Objective: More exports by the Central Baltic companies to new markets

Thematic Objective: (03) enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs by:

Investment Priority: (03d) supporting the capacity of SMEs to grow in regional, national and international markets, and to engage in innovation processes

Partners (3)

Lead Partner: Eesti Infotehnoloogia ja Telekommunikatsiooni Liit

Department: Estonian ICT Cluster

Address: Lõõtsa 6, 11415 Tallinn, Estonia

Legal status: private

Website: http://www.itl.ee

Total budget: EUR 362 518.02

ERDF budget: EUR 295 959.71

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Name: RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Department: Division ICT, Unit Acreo, Section SME-Development

Address: Käppuddsgatan 1, 82430 Hudiksvall, Sweden

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.ri.se

Total budget: EUR 396 693.33

ERDF budget: EUR 297 520.00

Latvijas Informācijas tehnoloģiju klasteris

Name: Latvijas Informācijas tehnoloģiju klasteris

Department: N/A

Address: Skolas street 11, LV-1010 Riga, Latvia

Legal status: private

Website: http://www.itbaltic.com

Total budget: EUR 237 601.18

ERDF budget: EUR 193 977.60

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Partners and Projects info

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Competitive Economy Through Cross Border Export Support to Sub-Saharan Africa, India and UAE Countries

Partners and Projects info

Latvian Information Technologies Cluster

Competitive Economy Through Cross Border Export Support to Sub-Saharan Africa, India and UAE Countries

Partners and Projects info

Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications

Competitive Economy Through Cross Border Export Support to Sub-Saharan Africa, India and UAE Countries

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): Competitive Economy Through Cross Border Export Support to Sub-Saharan Africa, India and UAE Countries

Project acronym: eMesai

Project start date: 2019-04-01

Project end date: 2021-12-31

Project status: closed

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 996 812.53

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 787 457.31

Co-financing sources:

ERDF: Amount, EUR 787 457.31.

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2014 - 2020 INTERREG V-A Finland - Estonia - Latvia - Sweden (Central Baltic)

Last month that data in keep.eu was retrieved from the Programme's website or received from the Programme

2023-11-11

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

137 / 137 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

663 / 663 (100%)

Notes on the data

Information provided by the Programme. Achievements were retrieved by Interact from the Programme website (http://centralbaltic.eu/), or a website directly linked from it, on 2021-11-08, 2023-01-12 and 2024-03-08.

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Competitive Economy Through Cross Border Export Support to Sub-Saharan Africa, India and UAE Countries

Description

Thematic information

Partners (3)

Partners map

Summary

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

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