Profit.ro IMM Event – The year of great pressure for small entrepreneurs. 4rd Edition

• The year 2024 has come with multiple sources of uncertainty for small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises, which are likely to be prolonged or even exacerbated in the following year.
• The state’s “tax reform,” which is failing to cover its huge deficits, has resulted in increased taxes and fees for business. Lowering the entry threshold for micro-enterprises and increasing the tax for them, increasing income and goods taxes, but also VAT for certain sectors, eliminating some tax facilities from the past are just a few measures with a negative impact on small entrepreneurs, who are likely to new tax tightenings are added from 2025.
• The long-awaited digitization of ANAF and the rest of the public administration, from which the business environment expected a reduction in bureaucracy, started with technical confusion, in steps that, in the first stage at least, managed to complicate even what they wanted to simplify – the e-invoice being just one example.
• And the tax burden is not the only headache. It comes after a long period of rising energy, fuel and food prices, rising bank financing costs, a slowing economy, subdued consumption and persistent geopolitical tensions, with a border war continuing to affect the local economy.
• The shock of such developments is felt much more strongly by small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, caught, as always, in the middle of the crisis, with capitalization problems, without safety nets and with difficulties in applying coherent and predictable business plans, in times of uncertainty.
• In such a context, they must find solutions to cope with wage pressures, the need to attract, train and retain employees and the need to invest to keep up with technology.
• In addition, they must be able to secure new financing for working capital and investment, at a time when those taken in the past are increasingly difficult to repay.
• Securing financing is becoming more complicated for the tech sector as well, where the problems that have arisen internationally have dampened investors’ enthusiasm.
• How can entrepreneurs, in such a pressured environment, do more than simply survive the crisis? With what strategies and solutions can I capitalize on opportunities for innovation, growth, and internationalization? To what extent can they rely on support from other institutional, financial or administrative areas?

DISCUSSION TOPICS:

• Effect of regulations and legislative changes aimed at SMEs. Contested measures / expected reforms.
• What does the economic situation of the SME sector look like in the current difficult context. Sectoral perspectives.
• The impact of the war in Ukraine. Prospects in case of prolongation of the conflict.
• Financing solutions, including for digitization.
• Banking products intended for SMEs. Credits available. Solutions to refund problems.
• What must the state correct in order for the support programs to be effective.
• Status of programs with European funds. Which ones work better and which have less impact for SMEs? Recovery of delays.
• Calls for projects open in 2024. Opportunities and difficulties.
• Solutions for the precarious social dialogue between the state and entrepreneurs, consulted very rarely, late or not at all in legislative changes that target them.
• The problem of financial blockages, late payments.
• Challenges for SMEs on the labor market, in finding and retaining employees. Wage pressures. Training and specialization needs.
• Successful examples among SMEs, how they were able to get through the crisis.
• Technology innovations and trends that are changing local entrepreneurship.
• How SMEs face the technological challenges and the need for rapid digitization.
• Business internationalization solutions. Opportunities for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs to enter foreign markets.
• The perspective of investors (funds, angel investors, etc.) involved in the SME sector. How do ratings change during this period?
• Solutions for the development of the start-up ecosystem.
• Challenges for entrepreneurship education.

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