The EBRD Dushanbe Office notes that the launch of Know How campaign coincides with the opening of the new EBRD office in Khujand. The opening ceremony took place in Khujand also on March 18.

Supporting small businesses is at the heart of the EBRD’s mandate, and the Bank offers a range of instruments to support them, including providing finance both directly and indirectly through partner banks, and by helping SMEs access professional business advice through local consultants and international industry experts.

Few small and medium-sized businesses however seek out external advice to spur on their growth. They are unsure about the benefits and unclear on what the real outcomes of an advisory project will be. This information campaign, centred on the concept of “know-how”, looks at the value of knowledge for business, and how it can help improve a company’s performance. This new campaign was launched in Dushanbe in May 2014. It will be launched across 25 countries, from Southern and Eastern Europe to North Africa, Russia and Central Asia.

The event to launch the campaign reportedly brought together representatives of government, international organizations, financial institutions, enterprises, consulting companies and the media of Sughd province. The EBRD’s Small Business Support Team presented its activities in Tajikistan over the eight years since the team launched in the country and the new information Know-How campaign.

The EBRD has been helping small and medium-sized businesses in Tajikistan access external advice since 1997, applying donor funding from Belgium, Canada, the Early Transition Countries Fund, the EBRD Shareholder Special Fund, the European Union, Japan, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Taiwan Business-EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund and the United States. Over €4.2 mln in donor support has been combined with more than €832,000 in contributions from the clients themselves to help around 450 small and medium-sized businesses.

“The Sughd area is a very important region economically for Tajikistan and surrounding countries, and we have a significant number of projects with local consultants and international advisers in Sughd area. Bringing in outside expertise can have a dramatic effect on a company, and this campaign will help make that more widely known” says Jeff Ferry, Head of Regional Programme in the Russian Federation and Central Asia for the EBRD’s Small Business Support Team.