Member Article

ERDF invests £6m to stimulate North East growth

Thousands of North East firms will receive business support and advice following a £6m investment made by the European Regional Development Fund Competitiveness Programme 2007-2013.

Eligible SMEs will receive a minimum 12 hours of support to help grow their business and improve performance.

The programme will be delivered to more than 3,000 companies by the North East Business Support Fund, which will be ran by Northumberland Business Service Ltd (NBSL).

A 40% subsidy will also be offered to companies to help them gain access to external growth experts, to support further plans for expansion.

Baroness Hanham, CBE, Communities Minister, commented: “It is the help of experts in providing support, mentoring and specialist advice, which enables business to grow confidently and I’m pleased that the provision of this funding will do just that, by helping businesses to improve and increase their profitability.

“Private sector growth is vital to a strong economy, particularly in the small and medium enterprise sectors, and this project will play an important role in strengthening new and current businesses and contributing to the growth of the local and national economy.”

Participating SMEs will have their own business advisor, who will identify key issues and barriers with the company’s team so a development action plan can be put into action.

John King, North East Business Support Manager at NBSL, said: “Businesses advised us that they need the stimulus of this type of intervention in order to bring in the right external expertise to help businesses develop their growth plans and turn them into reality.

“This new North East Business Support Fund will allow a much greater volume of eligible businesses to receive help.

“We will support a wide range of projects including: business strategies (marketing, finance, HR etc), process improvement, product development, e-commerce development … and more, that will lead to improved business performance across the whole of the North East.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .