The S-ACCESS project launches tender for the analysis of the three target countries: USA, Canada and Norway

THE PROJECT AIMS TO RESPOND TO THE OBSTACLES (ORGANISATIONAL, TECHNICAL, LEGAL, FINANCIAL …) THAT SMES FACE WHEN PARTICIPATING IN INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PROCESSES.

In July 2021, the S-ACCESS project “SMEs ACCESS to international public procurements” was launched, funded by the European Commission within the COSME programme for small and medium-sized enterprises. The consortium of which Mafex is part is coordinated by the Italian cluster DITECFER and supported by 5 other European railway clusters.

During its 36-month duration, the project aims to address the obstacles (organisational, technical, legal, financial…) faced by SMEs when participating in international public procurement processes. The project will cover 1,000 SME members of the 7 consortium partners and will focus on three target countries: USA, Canada and Norway.

During the first phase of the project and as part of the preparatory phase, a survey is being carried out in order to classify the target SMEs and to understand their international experience in the field of public procurement as well as their competitive positioning. The survey, which was launched last January and that will be active until the end of March, will provide key results for the market/supplier analysis, the B2B activities to be carried out with SMEs to facilitate partnership building, to tailor SME assistance activities and for the elaboration of the Internationalization Strategy and Implementation Roadmap.

Moreover, at the end of January the project launched an Open Tender to be closed this February for the analysis of each of the target countries. Each of the reports will contain information on legal, regulatory, fiscal, labour, etc. aspects of the target country. In addition, the companies winning the tenders will offer a set of training sessions to the partners in order to better understand the contents of the analyses with the aim of providing better capacities for the assistance to the SMEs participating in the project.