NETHERLANDS: The Netherlands' Innovation Platform has announced an “agenda for change” as the country seeks to strengthen the capacity of its high earning businesses and position itself as a portal to Europe.
The agenda includes a Growth Accelerator Programme for business to make the Netherlands one of the top five countries in the world in terms of competitive strength.
The agenda will focus on business renewal, choosing spearheads and key areas, and making the public sector and government more innovative.
Its goal is to help 100 companies that currently have an annual turnover of between EUR3-5 million to increase their turnover to EUR20 million within five years.
The 100 companies selected for the programme will receive intensive supervision from a "coach" - an experienced entrepreneur who will provide assistance to companies in terms of strategy development, financing, organisation and exporting.
The programme aims to address research which shows that the number of fast growing companies in the Netherlands lags behind other countries. These companies often run into bottlenecks caused by management inexperience, poor organisation difficulties in attracting good staff, and lack of funding.
The coaches will be drawn from "the High Growth Stars Consortium" which is a network of high growth companies in the Netherlands. The consortium is composed of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Port4Growth, De Baak, AKD Prinsen of Wijmen and Philips Applied Technologies.
There will also be support for 850 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) who have little or no export experience to support their entry into a new foreign market (which can be anywhere in the world). Grants can be used to fund various activities designed to facilitate a firm's entry into the export market, such as attendance at trade fairs and the development of sales presentations for foreign markets. The grant provides 50 percent of the costs of these activities up to a maximum of EUR11,500.
Specific policies around the agenda for change are being developed and will be announced before the end of the year.
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE), in conjunction with New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) in The Hague, will continue to explore the programme and any potential for New Zealand companies to be part of the project looking at how the Netherlands can be a portal to Europe.
For more information contact Jennifer Scoular. Trade Commissioner, Germany.
Contact NZTE's Hamburg office.
For New Zealand companies wishing to find out more about the business development support NZTE offers, click here.