The Ministry of Trade and Industry puts forward an amendment of the Act on Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Support (zákon o podpoře malého a středního podnikání). The Bill reflects the current legal situation which disallows the possibility of small and medium entrepreneurships to make use of bank credits and other forms of financial means as state support. The Bill also reacts on the current trend when EU structural funds could be used for the long-term entrepreneurship support of small and medium size. The Bill enables that financial means allocated in EU structural funds could be used for entrepreneurship support. The Bill stipulates that financial support means may be withdraw from other than the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s budget chapters (i.e. the EU structural funds). Therefore, the Bill broadens the scope of financial means that could be used for entrepreneurship support by which means it simplifies the support process. Furthermore, the Bill also enumerates venture capital as a mean of state entrepreneurship support.

The Bill also introduces an implicit financial supervision by the Act on Financial Control.

The Government should discuss the Bill at its next session on 12 June.

For further information, click here (explanatory report).