On 4th and 5th February 2020 at U.R.A.P. Confartigianato Imprese in Bari it was held the Partnership Meeting relating to the Project "Cross-border Cooperation and Competitiveness for SMEs" - 3C4SME, funded by the Interreg IPA CBC ITALY – ALBANIA – MONTENEGRO Program.

The first day of the meeting has been aimed at sharing and discussing the progress of the activities. The products made by each Partner will also be presented and the next meetings scheduled in Albania (in May) and in Molise (in April) will be planned. The latter in particular will be directed to carry out a comparison on the problems and the relative solutions to facilitate access to credit; experts from the banking world and managers of companies will take part, in order to report success stories thanks to bank credit.

The second day of the meeting has been aimed to present the bank models required of businesses and the existing legislation in Italy regarding guarantee cooperatives.

Finally, it has been discussed about the law proposal and the relationships to be activated to allow this law to be implemented in the territories involved in the project, with the aim of developing the guarantee cooperative tool in support of the companies and ensuring economic growth.

The partners of the 3C4SME project are: the Regional Union of Crafts and Small Enterprises of Puglia - U.R.A.P. Craftsmen and SMEs Association (Lead Partner), the Interprovincial Union of Craftsmen and Small Enterprises of the Provinces of Campobasso and Isernia, the Municipality of Fier (Albania), National Business Center (Albania), the Municipality of Kotor (Montenegro) and Ministry of Economy – Directorate for development of small and medium enterprises” (Montenegro).