1. EMPOWERING SMES BY TRAINING THEIR KEY PERSONNEL TRABZON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY

2. TRABZON Trabzon is a city in the Eastern Blacksea Region. It plays a historical and critical role in the development of the region. Total population : 748.982 The biggest city in the Eastern Blacksea Region

3. ECONOMY OF TRABZON The agriculture, based especially on the hazelnut and tea plants, dominates the economic growth of the region. Other fields of activity in Trabzon are, Construction, Transport, Fishing, Textile, Forestry *Almost all of the firms that give service in these sectors are SMEs.

4. HOW WAS THE PROJECT CREATED? Surveys that Trabzon Chamber of Commerce and Industry has conducted include the following results in general: There are deficiencies in the corporate structures of the firms in the region. ( Most of them are family companies) The competitiveness of the regional firms is at low levels. They do not sufficiently invest in R&D and innovation because of the deficiency in their corporate structures. Lack of qualified personnel.

5. HOW WAS THE PROJECT CREATED? One point got attraction at the end of the activities carried out: The shortage of qualified personnel was the main cause of all those problems. Hence, the project was prepared with a different method: This project aims at making SMEs more innovative and promoting their corporate capacity by training their key personnel such as engineers, top - level executives, experts etc. in the fields of strategic planning, innovation, entrepreneurship and managership and by encouraging them to cooperate in foreign trade agreements.

6. Activities 1- Establishment of the project office, procurement of the equipments, preparation of the training halls

7. Activities Activities 2- Visibility activities  Website  Newspaper advertisements  Advertisements on radios and tv  Posters and brochures

9. Activities Activities 3- Analysis of SMEs  Surveys have been conducted on the sectors of textile, shipping, agriculture, tourism, production, and food etc.  Surveys have been conducted on 1000 firms  The results of the surveys have also been shared with local administrative bodies.

10. The most important problems of SMES are cash flow and lack of skilled labour

12. Activities Activities 4 –Application, election and meetings

13. Activities Activities 5 – Start of the training

14. Upcoming Activities  Mutual visits to the project partner,Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will continue.  Seminars will be organized by SCCI.  The training period will end.  SSCI will be visited with the 3 most successful SMEs after the training and the best practices of the EU will be analysed.  Cooperation agreements will be signed.  The final report will be prepared.