BUSINESSMED, coordinator of the EBSOMED project, organized on Tuesday, June 18th, 2019 in Tunis, a press conference to announce the results of the first year of the project implementation in the presence of more than twenty-five journalists from 8 Euro-Mediterranean countries. One year after the launch of the project, it highlighted the flagship role of such an initiative in regional integration and to disseminate and consolidate key information on the business climate in the Southern Neighbourhood countries.

Mrs Jihen Boutiba, the project director of EBSOMED and General Secretary of BUSINESSMED, opened the session by recalling the different and more or less similar challenges in all the countries of the MENA region where this programme has launched or plans to launch activities, namely Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia. She also highlighted the project's role for regional economic integration, the dissemination, and consolidation of key business climate in the Southern Mediterranean, notably through the BCD (Business Country Desk) a digital platform that aims among other things to provide information to companies on the investment and foreign trade sectors. The platform that is now under development will be available soon.

Mr Marco Cunetto, the coordinator of EBSOMED, made a brief presentation of the project and highlighted the most significant figures on the activities and actions that took place during this first year. He recalled that very often entrepreneurs and project promoters find themselves unable to find adequate funding channels or donors they also have difficulties in establishing an economic model or taking charge of the administrative aspect of their business. These entrepreneurs logically go to supervisory agencies or investment advice and support agencies but without necessarily finding the help or assistance they need. Hence the birth of this programme which assists these organisations to offer the right information and judicious help to entrepreneurs.

During this second regional campaign to promote the project, two success stories were presented:

Waseem Aref, Palestinian entrepreneur and CEO of FinBloom company, spoke about his experience with the project in order to testify, help and inspire emerging companies in his country and the area, explaining all the contribution and impact what has the EBSOMED project done to its companies in terms of skills, partnerships and strategies to reach the point where it is today. Aref said: "I will pass on this experience and know-how to the new institutions and businesses in Palestine", stressing that the project and the experts who intervene during the training sessions have taught him to approach his service offer from a different angle to make it more attractive and relevant".

For her part, Ms. Ines Nasri CEO of Tunisia's TAMK-IN platform said: "Thanks to this project and to the different training I attended, I came out with management tools and, above all, ideas. This allowed me to have the necessary perspective to have a more global view of the project orientation of its capabilities and limitations. We have been able to make a better allocation of our resources that are limited in terms of human or monetary resources. This training has helped to redefine our overall goal and refine our targets to better approach them and help them."

The two success stories also spoke of a joint project they are launching showing all possible synergies and regional collaboration between beneficiaries of the same project.