International conference “Modern instruments of SME finance”, MinskThe Republican Center of Microfinance invited to the conference “Modern instruments of SME finance”, which was held in Minsk on 13 September. The conference was supported by USAID and organized in cooperation with the National Bank and the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Belarus. Experts and businessmen from Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Turkey, Russia, Armenia and Kazakhstan discussed different approaches of state support to small and medium enterprises. The panel “Guarantee funds as an effective tool of SME finance” was led by Ivan Koriakin (German Economic Team (GET) Belarus). The participants later on also considered the potential of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing (obtaining services from a large group of people, especially an online community) for the realization of business ideas.    Photos: USAID/Belarus |