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Ukrainian-Canadian Business Center As the world experience shows, small and middle business plays more and more important role in the economy of advanced countries and countries, which are in the process of development. At the moment, part of products manufactured by small businesses in the gross product of such advanced countries as Germany, Great Britain, Japan and Canada amounted to 66%. 60 % of employees have been involved in these enterprises. In Ukraine these data differ from those of the advanced European countries and countries of the world. Small businesses of our country produce only 10% of the national gross product and only 5% new jobs of the total have been created. Therefore, the development of small business in Ukraine is of great importance and has a big potential both in supplying the country market with a wide-range of products and the creation of new jobs. With this purpose in 1996 "Small Business and Economic Development" Project has been established, aimed at providing technical assistance to Ukraine by the Canadian Government for the long term up to the year of 2001. The Project is funded ($5,000,000) by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The Canadian partners include Confederation College in Thunder Bay, the University of Waterloo, the University of Saskatchewan and Parkland Community Futures Corporation. The partners in this project from the Ukrainian side include the Oblast and City Administration of Ivano-Frankivsk. At the moment this is the largest project of such type in CIS and it has no analogues in Ukraine. The main objective of the project is the establishment of self-sustainable, non-profitable and constantly operating Business Centre "Small Business and Economic Development for Ivano-Frankivsk" (SBEDIF) in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk. And such Business Centre has been created in April 1997 with the help of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast State Administration, Ivano-Frankivsk City Executive Committee and Confederation College of Thunder Bay, Canada. At the present moment it has a staff of over 25 professionals. The Director of the Business Centre is Alexander Pasichnyk. Mainly, Business Center provides assistance to small business development. With this purpose the Entrepreneurship Program has been developed and implemented. It allows a person, who decided to start-up its own business, to obtain all the information required for small business start-up and development by participating in the following seminars: Business Idea Assessment, Small Business Marketing and Management, Business Planning, Taxation, Import/Export and Business Networks. Besides the seminars, Business Centre provides everyday consultations on theses issues, on the issues of obtaining financial support in the Project Loan Fund, which has been created within the Loan Program for small business development in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. Business Centre provides financial support to small business start-up and development, informs the clients on other sources of financing, assists with business plans preparation and development. Total Loan Fund amounts to $500,000 CAN, i.e. $350,000 US. At the moment, 50 loans for over $256,000 US have been granted and 165 new jobs created. Business Centre also assists with entrepreneurial and public organizations development. It hosts and organizes foreign trade missions, helps to establish relationship with Ukrainian and foreign partners and investors. Business Centre provides business information and places clients proposals on the Internet. Business Centre seeks potential investors and partners for the companies of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, conducts genealogical investigations for those people, who would like to know some information on their relatives in Ukraine. Special attention should be paid to English language training. Since knowledge of English often simplifies and sometimes reduces the costs for doing import/export business, it helps the entrepreneur to obtain the information more easier. English language courses, introduced in the Business Centre, offers 5 levels of English language training, starting from the introductory to the advanced level. Business English courses have been introduced for the professionals. The main issue in the organization of the learning process is a high quality of teaching. The given problem is solved here in the complex – these are teachers, who have been trained in Canada, communicative approach, a wide use of audio-video aids and usually Cambridge materials and text books, given to each student. Besides the English courses, Business Centre recently introduced the Resource Centre and Computer courses. At the moment 90 people completed Computer Training Courses. We also plan to establish business incubator, where the clients, having no start-up capital, will be able to collectively use premises, communication facilities and receive consultations of our specialists at small rent payment. The effective use of the available and the implementation of our ideas in the future may become an excellent tool for the development of small and middle business in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
More detailed information on Business Centre quarterly activity is provided to the members of SBEDIF Working Committee – representatives of the Oblast State Administration and City Executive Committee. The Oblast State Administration and City Executive Committee are co-founders of JV "SBEDIF – Business Centre" and assist the management of the latter with problems solving. The Business Centre would be pleased to
provide further information on our services. We are located on the WEB site: You can contact us at the
following address: Director, Business Center:
Mr. Alexander Pasichnyk Assistant
Director: Mr. Anatolii Furda |
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Last updates were made 25-08-02 Copyright |
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