Cross-border Cooperation and Competitiveness for SMEs
The programme area shows an economy based on SMEs, which play a significant role as drivers for the innovation process and for the growth in the regions involved by the project.
To boost the competitiveness of the area, innovative SMEs need to overcome multiple challenges, such as the lacking access to suitable finance due to risk exposure.
Financial cooperatives can provide some of the best means for financial basis for development activities. In  many cases, they are the only formal financial organizations able to stabilize financial systems during crises.
The common challenge the project intends to tackle is to enhance the Economic Growth in involved Territories, through the guarantee cooperatives instrument.
The aim of the project is to verify the conditions to provide to the Albanians and Montenegrin small enterprises a financial instrument that in Apulia and in Molise has been facilitating the enterprises’ access to the bank funding, both for the growth and the management.
The transnational value can be seen from the impact that the tool will have for SMEs in Albania and Montenegro, in the application of good practices in Molise and in the possibility for Apulian SMEs to operate in the markets of Albania and Montenegro (CROSS BORDER IMPACT).

The expected change the project will have in relation to the current situation is: Ensuring greater access to credit for firms, taking into account the current unfavorable economic situation.
The main outputs are:
- Pilot Action, involving n. 20 enterprises
- Law proposal allowing guarantee cooperatives to operate.

The approach the project intends to follow is to start from the concrete cases that occurred in Italy in order to apply them in cross-border areas where the idea appears new. Analyze the main difficulties of these territories to apply the proposed solution and then to refine it in Italy.
The project is mature for realization.