Conference on “Entrepreneurship and Employment in South-East Europe” Bucharest, Romania, 26-27 May 2004

This conference was co-organised with the Central European Initiative, the Romanian SME Agency, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Stability Pact. This event aimed at addressing simultaneously the improvement of the business climate and the enhancement of social cohesion. It emphasised the need to bring about a vivid change in South Eastern Europe, establishing a culture of entrepreneurship and small and medium sized enterprises (SME) development combined with improved employment, education and training policies.

The conference was opened by the Romanian Minister of Labour, Social Solidarity and Family, Elena Dumitru. She encouraged a further use and a greater convergence of the Stability Pact instruments already available to promote these objectives, such as the OECD led Investment Compact, the European Charter for Small Enterprises, the private sector development programmes led by the EBRD and other International Financial Institutions, as well as the Council of Europe/ILO led review of employment policies and of the performance of employment services of the SEE Countries further to the Employment Ministerial Conference of end October 2003 in Bucharest.

This event was part of the Bologna process and prepared the Romanian participation in the second OECD Ministerial Conference on SMEs, which took place in Istanbul, on 3-5 June 2004. For more information, please contact Ekaterina.Travkina@oecd.org

• Download the anotated agenda
• Download the speech by Sergio Arzeni, Head of the OECD LEED Programme