The State to Decrease Duplication of the Entrepreneurship Support Structures

In August we sent a query to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication in which we wanted to know what has been done with the initiative for reorganising entrepreneurship support structures that was started in 2015. The Ministry responded that they are currently actively working on that topic and in April of 2018 they will make specific proposals to the government for making the support measures and activities aimed at the entrepreneurship and innovation sector more efficient.

The Ministry has said that different analyses in the sector have revealed various problems such as fragmentation of the national support structure, duplication of activities, lack of clarity in demand, inefficiency of support activities and poor connection with the growth of productivity as well as disconnect between research and entrepreneurship.

In April, the Ministry is planning to make the following proposals to the Government:

• how to improve the cooperation between entrepreneurship and research in order to increase productivity per person employed;
• redirection of the budget funds to measures/ activities that boost productivity or create substantially better conditions for economic growth (amplifying private sector investments);
• where and how to decrease the fragmentation of the national support system and duplication between institutions;
• where and how to decrease competition with the private sector;
• how to create prerequisites and gradually exit the EU structural funds support measures;
• whether and how to make granting and reclamation of entrepreneurship and innovation support more efficient.

The Ministry agrees that a precondition for making the entrepreneurship support system more efficient is tight cooperation between the areas of activity, because the support structure is made up by organisations operating in the area of administration of many different ministries and umbrella organisations created by entrepreneurs. Due to the fact that business organisations also play an important role, the focus of the process is on the prevention of the duplication of and competition between the services offered by the private and public sectors, as well as decreasing of the fragmentation of the state support system.

Soon the Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry will be included in the process.