On 28^th November, in Skopje, MASIT as partner of the project consortium organized the last conference “GIVE” Going International where beside the project partners, there were participants from other organizations and companies from mostly from ICT but from other sectors as well. The main goals of this conference were:

• Presentation of the activities in the GIVE project;
• Presentation of the “Internationalization Strategy” and “Barriers to internationalizations”;
• Presentation of future opportunities that will be provided to SMEs to establish successful business in China, Egypt and Taiwan;
• Experts from organizations and consulting companies to give information and share experiences about the three markets;
• Provoke interactive discussion on SME internationalization – barriers and opportunities;
• Provide B2B opportunities with companies and clusters from 3 sectors and 9 countries – Albania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Serbia, Latvia, Romania, France, Croatia and Hungary.

The conference lasted for one day, which was attended by 43 participants in total, coming from 32 different companies or organizations.

In the opening session of the conference Mrs. Anita Nikova Bundovski, Executive Director of MASIT and Mr. Todor Mitov, Project Assistant in ICT Cluster Bulgaria gave opening speeches and presented the GIVE project and its activities. Moreover, the COSME program was presented by Mrs. Adriana Abazi Ramadani, Head of European Integration Department in Ministry of Economy in North Macedonia.

In the second session the Internationalization Strategy and the future GIVE plans and activities were presented by Mr. Todor Mitov, Project Assistant in ICT Cluster Bulgaria. Moreover, the barriers to internationalization which may arise in the process of internationalization, were presented by Mrs. Diana Campaign, Communication Manager in Cluj IT Cluster. In the same session, the partners in the GIVE project introduced themselves to the audience and shared the experiences, lessons learned and the success stories of the project.

In the first panel session “Opportunities and Challenges of Going to China” the first speaker was Mrs. Katerina Kostovska, Export Manager in Tikves, who shared the experiences of working with China and exporting the products in China. The second presentation was online presentation by Jim Stoopman, Project Manager at China IRP SME Helpdesk who presented the internationalisation and the importance of Intellectual Property. Then followed Mr. Martins Tiknuss, Managing Partner in Gateway & Partners who provided information regarding the Chinese market, internationalization of clusters, industry events, B2B events, trade missions in China etc. Moreover, in this presentation the audience had a chance to hear more about the communication culture of China. Next presenter was Mr. Asllan Zeneli, consultant for China market from Albania, who talked about the opportunities and challenges of expanding the business in China and how to find the right ties with China market. The last presenter in this session was Mr. Branimir Dzenopoljac, Cluster Manager at ICT Cluster of Central Serbia Kragujevac who shared the experience from study trip in China from 2018.

In the second panel session “The opportunities and challenges of going to Egypt” the audience had a chance to hear more about the best ways to expand the business in Egypt by Mahmud Elkolaly from International federation for businessmen and investors.

The third and last session was dedicated for “Opportunities and challenges of going to Taiwan”. The first presenter in this session was Mr. Goran Poposki, President of the Assembly of MASIT and Director of Alternative System Solutions – ASI who shared experiences from business trip to Taiwan and talked about the best ways to expand the business in Taiwan. The next speaker was Mrs. Irena Xhafa, Business Consultant for South-east Asia market who shared the experiences from living and working in Taiwan. The last speaker was Mr. Goran Mitreski, Director of Kabtel who shared his experience, the opportunities and challenges from working in Taiwan. The event ended with conclusions regarding the three markets provided by Mrs. Anita Nikova Bundovski, Executive Director of MASIT. The event ended with cocktail and networking between the participants.

At the conference, the participants had many chances for networking and establishing potential future cooperation. This event was a great opportunity to discover the best practices and experiences from the organizations and companies in order to potentially expand the business in the third markets.

The presentations from the conference are available here.

Stay up to date with all the future activities within the project by following the GIVE Facebook page and GIVE LinkedIn group.