International trade: the new SME Internationalization portal

Do you want to do business abroad, create partnerships, sell, buy, or invest?

The European Commission has set up a portal dedicated to international trade, accessible online, the SME Internationalization portal. The objective is to identify resource centres, of institutional origin, designed  to provide assistance and support to SMEs or SMIs in the European Union who wish to engage in international trade and develop outside the Union.

The portal lists these institutional bodies, provides their contact details and indicates the type of assistance provided. As it stands, the countries concerned are, to cite only the largest areas, the countries of the European Union and North America, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, China, Japan, India, Australia and South Africa. For example, resources of French origin come from the network of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI), Bpifrance, etc. They are pooled with the resources of their foreign counterparts.

The portal makes it possible to filter resources according to criteria such as the countries concerned by the operation or the type of link sought abroad (export, import, to set up technical cooperation, seek or become a commercial partner, invest).

This allows entrepreneurs contractor to learn of the services provided by all of the institutional organizations in Europe and on the target foreign markets, saving hours of research on the internet. This is of significant importance for companies in the medical device sector, which are involved in health products where the share of international trade is high.

This portal is in addition to the European portal for SMEs also set up by the European Commission, which is teeming with technical information, particularly in its market access database (BDAM) on import procedures in countries outside the European Union.

These institutional resources will not exempt the company, from the beginning of its project to trade internationally, from thinking about the legal formalization of its relationship with its foreign correspondents: it is even more important in international trade to have a written, signed contract which will clarify the relations between the parties and which will determine, in the event of litigation, the applicable legislation or the court with jurisdiction.

To do so, specialized support by a lawyer is essential because there are many pitfalls in international contracts. The initial investment will quickly be amortized at the slightest question about the consistency of agreements with foreign partners.

Whatever the case, the Barbey law firm is there to support you in your projects in terms of international trade.