In a bid to help businesses access foreign markets, the European Commission is organising a number of missions to fast growing countries. Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani, responsible for industry and entrepreneurship, and the Director General of DG Enterprise and Industry Daniel Calleja Crespo - who is also Europe's Small Business Envoy - are currently visiting growth regions in the world to help EU enterprises better profit from fast growing emerging markets, such as those in China, South East Asia and Latin America.

Supporting small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EU and US to access markets on the other side of the Atlantic was the central topic of the fourth EU-US SME Workshop, in Washington DC, on 3 and 4 December 2012. Specific areas for cooperation agreed will include the promotion of SME events and business partnering activities, participation in sectoral or thematic seminars and the exchange of information on SME networking opportunities. SMEs on both sites will profit in the areas of business matchmaking, technology brokerage, and innovation management. 

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to be better integrated into automated electronic data interchange (EDI) to be successful in global markets. EDI allows companies to exchange data between their own ICT systems and the systems of customers and suppliers. In recent years EDI has greatly benefited large companies, whilst SMEs could not fully participate due to the high costs of such systems. Pilot projects supported by the European Commission demonstrate that common ICT systems for the supply chain of the automotive industry as well as for the transport and logistics sector enable SMEs to profit from global digital supply chains.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, can now help shape the process of standardisation. Standards will be drawn up more quickly and transparently further to a recent reform of the European standardisation system. It will also be easier to use global standards in the fast-growing field of information and communication technologies, or ICT, which is crucial to ensuring interoperability.  Many ICT standards are not made by the European standardisation organisations but by other organisations known as fora and consortia. Public procurers can now use such standards provided a quality check is undertaken. 

GMES, Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, the European Commission’s earth observation programme will create 83 000 jobs in Europe by 2030. Initial results show that GMES will stimulate economic growth and employment in a wide range of industrial sectors, and by 2030 will lead to the creation or maintenance of approximately 20 000 direct jobs in Europe, if enabling factors are put in place. With highly skilled jobs in this sector typically impacting employment in other sectors, the GMES-related economic stimulus could also result in a wider economic effect, with an additional 63 000 indirect jobs secured by 2030.