MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT
BARBARA TERENZI
The General Meeting, held on 28 April 2022, confirmed Barbara Terenzi as President of WUSME for the three-year period 2022-2025, allowing her to carry on the fruitful work accomplished in the previous mandate and continue the legacy of her father Gian Franco Terenzi, Founder of the Association.
I WELCOME THE POSITION OF WUSME PRESIDENT WITH HONOR AND COMMITMENT
It is with conviction and determination that I continue the path traced by my father, 12 years ago, with the creation of WUSME.
His commitment and his great and constant dedication to assist and support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Crafts, both at an entrepreneurial and institutional level, are long standing.
I have been at his side in the last 30 years, after he founded the first association in support and protection of entrepreneurs and craftsmen in San Marino.
My father has always been close to SMEs. So, he was also in this particularly complicated period on a global level. He had already planned many initiatives and had promoted the launch of several ongoing projects.
I look forward to keep receiving the support of the Board of Directors and Permanent Commissions delivering continuity to this Organization, through fruitful collaborations and implementation of the initiatives under progress, sharing proposals useful to support WUSME in its effective development.
It is precisely in this moment of crisis that MSMEs and Crafts, true heart of the economy and substantial engine for employment, face the greatest difficulties and biggest challenges.
WUSME will continue to seize opportunities and promote synergies at the international level in support of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Crafts to safeguard their rights, interests and competitiveness, through the promotion and development of economic and financial cooperation and the enhancement of sustainable business models, as a viable strategic and investment choice to rapidly exit the current crisis situation.
Barbara Terenzi
WUSME President
MESSAGE OF THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT
GIAN FRANCO TERENZI
WUSME, A CONCRETE SUPPORT FOR SMEs WORLDWIDE
With the firm conviction that our future will be determined by the vitality and capacity of SMEs, I give you my personal welcome to WUSME and invite you to cooperate with us to grow together with the small business, the economic realities that have all the requirements needed to contribute to a sustainable economic recovery, and lasting, both in the industrialized countries than in developing ones.
Anywhere In the world, SMEs represented the key to economic growth and employment through a reduction of economic disparities, greater social cohesion and a more intense transnational cooperation. These capabilities must be supported by a strong political will within an institutional framework designed to make a change globally.
We have to sustain this growth path, offering concrete answers to small and medium-sized enterprises at the local level, so that they can be globally competitive in an intelligent way, supportive and sustainable.
For this reason, we need to take action in support of SMEs in most industrialized areas as well as in less privileged ones, taking account of their diverse needs.
With particular reference to the most industrialized areas, we need to:
• recognize the important role of SMEs and the craft sector for the economic, social and cultural development locally and globally;
• improve the environment in which enterprises operate, facilitating the administrative environment, legislative and financial sector in order to maintain their vitality, efficiency and continuity over time;
• encourage young entrepreneurs to invest in “manual labor” and acquire the skills, which are necessary but still at risk of disappearing due to lack of generational succession; • re-evaluate and promote trades and professions purely “manual”, providing a good education, international equivalence and financial incentives;
• create the necessary conditions to establish collaboration relations with developing countries.
With reference to the less privileged areas, you must, on the other hand:
• provide the stimulus necessary to encourage the creation of a new enterprise;
• ensure the conditions necessary for the safety, health and social protection of small entrepreneurs;
• promote initiatives aimed at formation of new professions and professionals;
• establish a network of cooperation with industrialized areas.
In both cases, we need to focus on the realities of micro enterprises, because when it comes to small and medium-sized enterprises, in fact, refers primarily to the craft and micro-enterprise, which in Europe accounts for 91% of all traders.
“Think small first” principle adopted by the European Community within the framework of the “Small Business Act”, which tends to put small and micro Center.
Even in developing countries, the micro-enterprise is the only really able to make, over time, the required “economic democracy”, playing a social function.
For its “human-sized” and its system of relations, worldwide small business not only promotes greater economic prosperity, but, more generally, the improvement of the living conditions of the local communities in which it operates, as an instrument of protection and cohesion of the family unit, as the principal social institution in every society.
This is why, as WUSME, we are strongly committed to creating the conditions necessary to ensure a profitable direct relationship between those who act as entrepreneurs, because we believe that such a direct relationship, which is first and foremost human, is the basis of all forms of economic cooperation, today more than ever.
World Union of SMEs, we set ourselves the objective of creating opportunities and occasions that did not end in themselves, but which could lead to concrete results and actions in favour of SMEs and the craft from around the world.
Our commitment and joint effort is to combine and share ideas, knowledge and experience, marginal issue, which allows us to lay the groundwork to create many more opportunities for Exchange and sharing, for mutual growth.
When we offer our experiences, we are aware of what the risks and efforts
addressed in the world by the entrepreneurs and we can help them avoid the danger of failure to ensure basic living conditions, not yet present in the world.
As we strive to achieve all this, we must insist in action, because we know how difficult it is to support those who have made the choice to work independently as entrepreneurs to create their own business.
Our choice is determined by the strong belief that the institutions need to understand a fundamental concept: provide support and act in favour of those who, by choice, are self-employed is an opportunity to promote economic growth and social cohesion, protection of the family as the primary social group and support the process of economic democracy and enriching local communities so distributed.
What should we put in place?
We must ensure that the banking and financial system, today at the Centre of global flows, which often has penalized the owners of small businesses, recognize the fundamental role that could be played by small businesses in economic recovery and act appropriately by adopting and proposing their financing instruments for new or renewed.
I think the “loan of honour”, for example, a tool that can be taken into consideration. The risk is generally low, because small business, especially the family-run is prone to pay regularly and honor his debt.
We try to involve more and more institutions and Governments to focus their attention on current, real-world problems faced today by SMEs and craft activities and share our journey.
I have to say, with regret, that in the course of the many international conferences and missions in which I participated, often several statements were made in favour of SMEs, even from major political figures, who were rarely accompanied by facts.
Our Organization has the ability and the duty to defend our common effort
and get help to grow in the knowledge of the different institutions and politics.
The recent communications I received from our social charges they give me the opportunity to draw your attention to important issues, already discussed during our recent meetings in San Marino, Dubrovnik and Budapest. I refer to the need, urgently, to field a strong structured promotion action and WUSME public relations internationally, focusing primarily on the participation, support and involvement of our representatives, native of the five continents, which have important functions and knowledge of the institutions and the reality of SMEs in their countries.
We are committed to be really proactive, to continue to support and promote the activities of SMES, operating unconditionally for the fulfillment of our mission, focusing on improving the business environment through the creation of appropriate support mechanisms, effective, timely, and results-oriented.
We will remain faithful to the ideals and principles that have guided the Union since its inception.
Gian Franco Terenzi
President WUSME
