Need Analysis Report - ADAM - Leonardo da Vinci Projects and

Boosting Entrepreneurship Tools for Migrants ---- Need Analysis Report ----

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Need Analysis Report

Final version | September 2011 XXI INVESLAN S.L.

LLP/Leonardo da Vinci Programme | Grant agreement number: 2010-1-PT1-LEO05-05164

“This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.”


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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The present report has been prepared by XXI INVESLAN S.L. within the framework of Best Form

project (2010-1-PT1-LEO05-05164) in collaboration with:


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Table of Contents

1. Overall…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5

2. Introduction to the methodology framework………………………………………………………………………...7

3. Description of the State of the art on immigrant entrepreneurship………………………………………..8

3.1 Immigration. Different scenarios……………………………………………………………………………………………….……8

3.1.1 PT. General data…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………8

3.1.2 ES. General data………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...8

3.1.3 UK. General data………………………………………………………………………………………………………………10

3.1.4 IT. General data…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………10

3.1.5 PL. General data……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….11

3.1.6 RO. General data……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...12

3.1.7 DE. General data………………………………………………………………………………………………………………14

3.1.8 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..15

3.2 Labour situation of immigrants. Different scenarios……………………………………………………………………..19

3.2.1 PT. General data……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….19

3.2.2 ES. General data……………………………......................................................................................20

3.2.3 UK. General data...................................................................................................................21

3.2.4 IT. General data.....................................................................................................................23

3.2.5 PL. General data....................................................................................................................24

3.2.6 RO. General data...................................................................................................................25

3.2.7 DE. General data...................................................................................................................26

3.2.8 Conclusions…………................................................................................................................26

3.3 Immigrant entrepreneurship. Different scenarios…………………………………………………………………………27

3.3.1 PT. General data……………………………………………………………………………………………………….………27

3.3.2 ES. General data…………………………………………........................................................................28

3.3.3 UK. General data...................................................................................................................33

3.3.4 IT. General data.....................................................................................................................34


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3.3.5 PL. General data....................................................................................................................37

3.3.6 RO. General data...................................................................................................................38

3.3.7 DE. General data...................................................................................................................43

3.3.8 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..45

4. Description of the business advice activity oriented to immigrants……………………………………….47

4.1 PT. General data………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....47

4.2 ES. General data…………………………………………...........................................................................53

4.3 UK. General data......................................................................................................................56

4.4 IT. General data........................................................................................................................57

4.5 PL. General data.......................................................................................................................62

4.6 RO. General data......................................................................................................................64

4.7 DE. General data......................................................................................................................67

4.8 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………68

5. Business advisers' profile…………………………………………………………………………………….……………….70

5.1 PT. General data………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....70

5.2 ES. General data…………………………………………...........................................................................74

5.3 UK. General data......................................................................................................................78

5.4 IT. General data........................................................................................................................80

5.5 PL. General data.......................................................................................................................85

5.6 RO. General data......................................................................................................................88

5.7 DE. General data......................................................................................................................92

5.8 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...97

6. Good practices in business advise adressed to immigrants.......................................................102

7. Final conclusions............................................................................................................................105


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Index of Figures

Figure 1. Statistical evolution of the immigrant population in Portugal since 1980…………………………………….…8

Figure 2. Statistical evolution of the immigrant population in Spain since 1996……………………………………………9

Figure 3. Ethnic composition of foreigners in Poland, 2010,………………………………………………………………………..12

Figure 4. Number of immigrants with right to stay in Romania 2005-2009…………………………………………………13

Figure 5. Distribution of immigrant with right of residence in Romania, considering their country of origin.14

Figure 6. Classification of countries according to their immigrant integration policies………………………………..19

Figure 7. Spain for over three years by initial and current occupation…………………………………………………………21

Figure 8. Distribution per number and activities of immigrants with a temporary right………………………………25

Figure 9. % of population that are entrepreneurs (TEA) in each collective according to their origin……………29

Figure 10. Immigrant entrepreneurs by gender 2007…………………………………………………………………………………30

Figure 11. Distribution of immigrant entrepreneurs according to their origin.2007……………………………………31

Figure 12. Educational background of immigrant entrepreneurs according to their origin country 2007……31

Figure 13. General situation ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………54

Figure 14. Classification of countries…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..54

Figure 15. Matters in which they advice……………………………………………………………………………………………………..77

Figure 16. Main barriers identified……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..78

Figure 17. Skills an competences. Self assessment………………………………………………………………………………………82


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Index of Tables

Table 1. The five most common nationality groups in Germany according to the country of birth (31.12.2009)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….15

Table 2. Comparative analysis. Immigrants in PT, ES, UK, IT, PL, RO and DE………………………………………………….16

Table 3. Classification of businesses created by immigrants in Spain…………………………………………………………..32

Table 4. Typology of companies managed by immigrants (property of immigrants) in Spain………………………32

Table 5. Incriptions, registrations and balance of enterprises in Italy……………………..…………………………………..35

Table 6. Top 20 countries of non-EU origin owner of sole propietorship…………………………………………………….37

Table 7. New registered commercial companies with foreign participation to social capital……………………….38

Table 8. Assessment of the CNAI entrepreneurship unit by the immigrants………………….…………………………….53

Table 9. Skills gaps among immigrants entrepreneurs………………………………………………………………………………..73

Table 10. Profile of respondents. ES…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….76

Table 11. Common needs, knowledge and training needs of Italian interviewed………………………………………..84

Table 12. Comparative analysis of business advisers' profile in all countries………………………….................... 101

References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..113

Boosting Entrepreneurship Tools for Migrants ----Need Analysis Report ----

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1. Overall

This report has been elaborated in the frame of Best Form project (Boosting

Entrepreneurship Tools for Migrants, with ref. num. 2010-1-PY1-LEO05-05164), more

precisely, under the workpackage 2 (from now on, WP2) “Need Analysis”.

Best Form project wants to test and validate the CBBA model (especially the

business advisers training content developed under SIED project) in different immigrant

contexts and adapt that particular content to such contexts, enhancing business

advisers’ skills and consequently, improving immigrant entrepreneurship in the partner

countries: Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Romania and Germany.

To achieve this aim, the first step is to identify, collect and analyze at national

level, information and data on business advise activity in which the transfer of

innovation will occur. This step will serve afterwards as the basis for the content

adaptation of SIED results and for the conception of the training content and support

materials. The process for carrying out this step is based on already available national

documents and communications complemented with the interviews and the

questionnaires performed by each partner.

Analysing and comparing the information gathered from each partner the WP2

leader, XXI INVESLAN S.L., has elaborated the present Need Analysis Report. This

document will be the foundation for the second step in the BEST FORM project: to

update and adapt the results from SIED project.

The report is divided into three main chapters and starts with a short

introduction of the methodology applied during the production of national reports. The

chapters comprise the following areas:

Description of the state of the art on immigrant entrepreneurship in each

country.

Description of the Business advice activity oriented to immigrants in each

country.

Results from national surveys carried out. Divergent and common aspects.

The information gathered from national reports is presented following the order

of partner countries established in the project application.


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The report ends with the conclusions obtained from the comparison and

analysis of countries information and from their own conclusions.

At the end of the document there is a compilation which contains all references

consulted.

Last but not least, we want to thank the research teams in the participating

countries for their highly valuable contributions and logistic support.

September 2011. XXI Inveslan S.L.


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2. Introduction to the methodology framework

The methodology framework was elaborated by WP2 leader, XXI INVESLAN S.L., and

provided to the project partners in order to offer them some guidelines on how to carry out the

national reports. This methodology framework provided work guidelines in connection with the

procedure to gather data and the structure to organize the information obtained.

National investigations were based on a qualitative work methodology. Each partner carried

out its national research through:

Primary resources: interviews and questionnaires.

Secondary resources: consulting the most relevant references (bibliographical references,

reviews, lectures, papers, Internet Links, studies, etc.) referred to the immigrant

population, its labour situation, the business activity within this group, and other key

aspects.

Concerning the surveys carried out highlight that there was no fixed numbers of interviews

or questionnaires but at least 20 business advisers were enquired in each partner country. The

interviews and questionnaires were implemented on-line, by telephone or face to face. Each

partner according to its possibilities decided the most suitable methodology among the above

mentioned options. The profiles of the interviewee were:

Business advisers working with immigrant communities.

Business advisers working with other disadvantageous groups, mainstream or from public

entities.

It was also recommended to contact:

Experts in the field of business advice from universities, enterprises, public bodies (...) that

provide this service and other entities linked to the area of immigration.

A common structure was established in order to have homogeneous information and

facilitate the elaboration of this report.

As a result of the application of this methodology, seven national reports were developed.

Each national report includes the conclusions of the desk research made and the interviews carried

out.


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3. Description of the State of the art on immigrant entrepreneurship

3.1 Immigration. Different scenarios.

3.1.1 PT: General data.

Immigrant population in Portugal is constantly growing since the eighties. Between 2000

and 2005, the number of immigrants living in the country faced a sudden increase, doubling,

mainly due to the construction boom experienced and the immigrant-friendly legislation, which

favored the legalization of a substantial amount of immigrants. According to the Service of

Foreigners and Frontiers (SEF), in 2009, there were more than 450.000 immigrants in Portugal.

The most representative immigrant communities in Portugal are those from other

Portuguese-speaker countries (Brazil, Cape Vert, Angola and Guinea Bissau) and from Eastern

European countries (Ukraine, Romania and Moldova). Together they represent 71% of the

immigrant population. Most of the immigrants are concentrated on the Portuguese capital and its

surrounding areas.

Figure 1: Statistical evolution of the immigrant population in Portugal since 1980.

Source: SEFSTAT, 2010

3.1.2 ES: General data.

Spain has recently experienced large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history.1

According to the National Statistics Institute (here in after INE)2, at the beginning of the present

1 Information taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Spain (language: English)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Spain


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year, there were almost 6.7 millions of immigrants living in Spain (14.2% of the total population)

Since the middle of 90s, Spain experienced an important increase of immigrants.

Figure 2: Statistical evolution of the immigrant population in Spain since 1996.

Source: Evolución y análisis del número de extranjeros en España. 2011. Based on INE data.

The most representative immigrant communities in Spain are those from other Spanish-

speaker countries (Latin America: Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru). In 2006,

according to INE, this group represented 36.21% of the total immigrant population. Then, the main

groups are formed by people from EU-27 (34.45% in 2006) and North Africa (14.83% in 2006).

Most of the immigrants are concentrated in areas with a great economic dynamism:

Madrid and its surrounding areas, Mediterranean areas and Islands. Immigrants from EU countries

are more located in Levante, Andalusia, Baleares and Canarias. On the other side, the regions with

fewer immigrants are: Extremadura, Asturias, Galicia, País Vasco, Castilla y Leon and Cantabria. 3

Three regions, Madrid, Barcelona and Alicante concentrate 44.81% of all registered immigrants.

The nationality also affects the geographical distribution of immigrants. In Madrid and

Cataluña, immigrants from Latin America and North Africa represent 2/3 of the total immigrant

population in both regions. British people are majority in Alicante and Malaga; German people in

Baleares and Canarias Islands. Finally, the half part of Rumanians life in Madrid and Castellón.

In 2009, according to the gender, 53% were men and 47% women. 19% of immigrants had

less than 20 years old. The main group was formed by immigrants between 20 and 65 years old

2 http://www.ine.es/ (languages: English and Spanish)

3 Source: INE. http://www.ine.es/ (Languages: English and Spanish) 2005

http://www.ine.es/

http://www.ine.es/


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(76%) and only 5%, had more than 65 years old.

3.1.3 UK: General data.

Since 1922, immigration to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has

been substantial, in particular from Ireland and the former colonies and other territories of the

British Empire - such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, South Africa, Kenya and Hong

Kong - under British nationality law. 4

About half the population increased between the 1991 and 2001 censuses was due to

foreign-born immigration. 4.9 million people5 (8.3 percent of the population at the time) were

born abroad, although the census gives no indication of their immigration status or intended

length of stay.

Provisional figures show that in 2009, 567,000 people arrived to live in the UK whilst

371.000 left, meaning that net inward migration was 196.000. The number of people immigrating

to and emigrating from the UK both fell between 2008 and 2009.6

Migration to and from Central and Eastern Europe has increased since 2004 with the

accession to the European Union of eight Central and Eastern European states, since there is free

movement of labour within the EU. The UK government is currently phasing in a new points-based

immigration system for people from outside of the European Economic Area.

3.1.4 IT: General data.

In Italy, over the last twenty years, migrant population faced a growth of more than twenty

times its previous value. At the beginning of 2010 ISTAT registered 4.25mln residents.

Migration is a structural phenomenon in Italy and has important demographic implications,

with repercussions at intercultural level as well. At the moment, Italy is undergoing an increase in

the ageing rate of its population: migrants are a demographic rebalancing vector, which also has a

4 “refugee, n.". Oxford English Dictionary Online. November 2010.

http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/161121. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

5 Definitions and obligations". UNHCR. http://www.unhcr.org.au/basicdef.shtml. Retrieved 19 June 2010.

6"Refugees in Canada". Amnesty International Canada. http://www.amnesty.ca/Refugee/who.php. Retrieved 23

February 2011. "Refugees and Displaced Persons". Human Rights Education Associates. http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=418. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

http://www.amnesty.ca/Refugee/who.php.%20Retrieved%2023%20February%202011

http://www.amnesty.ca/Refugee/who.php.%20Retrieved%2023%20February%202011


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positive effect on manpower.

Romanian community is the largest one, counting slightly less than 1mln people; it is

followed by Albanian and Moroccan (roughly 0.5mln), Chinese and Ukrainian (200,000). Migrants

are more and more connected to the needs of families and enterprises, as reported in ISTAT and

INPS surveys.

Caritas/Migrantes Report 2010 produced an analysis on costs and benefits of migration,

which showed that migrants’ contribution to public entries is much higher than what they receive

in terms of social service. It amounts to 7bln of welfare contributions which restored the balance

of the National Institution of Welfare; in addition, migrant workers are far from retiring age, being

mostly youngsters. They contribute to 11% of the GDP of Italy by paying taxes for 387bln.

3.1.5 PL: General data.

Poland is one of the most nationally homogenous countries in Europe and the entire globe.

According to the recent national population census carried out in 2002, about 96.7% of all

38.230.080 residents declared Polish nationality. Only around 1.3% of the surveyed were non-

Polish (471.500): mostly Silesians (group not being recognized by the Polish authorities), Germans,

Belarusians, Ukrainians and Roma people. In case of another 2.0% of respondents (775.000) their

nationality was not stated.

Furthermore, the population census has revealed that a small 0.11% of residents (41 000)

were non-Polish citizens – a number far lower than that observed in other European countries

Low stock of foreigners is a result of very limited immigration to Poland in comparison to

other European societies. In fact, Poland has been for decades one of major migrant sending

countries in Europe. The collapse of the Iron Curtain and, especially, joining the European Union

has even deepened the emigration trend.

Despite Poland can still be described as a net emigration country, during last years the

slowly growing influx of immigrants has been observed. According to register set up within the

Ministry of Interior and Administration, in 2010, about 97.100 foreigners had valid residence

permits. With regard to continents of origin of migrant workers Europe (particularly the former

USSR countries) predominated, followed by Asia and Arabic countries. In total the most numerous

groups of foreigners were citizens of:


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Figure 3: Ethnic composition of foreigners in Poland, 2010.

Source: Ministry of Interior and Administration

The greatest number of foreigners settles in capital Warsaw district (Mazowieckie), which

offers the most employment opportunities. Apart from that major destinations in Poland included

other highly urbanised regions, such as: Slaskie (Katowice), Malopolskie (Krakow), Dolnoslaskie

(Wroclaw), Lodzkie (Lodz), Pomorskie (Gdansk) and Wielkopolskie (Poznan).

As far as socio-demographic and economic structures of immigrants are concerned, in 2002,

immigrants were younger and much better educated than Polish citizens. For instance, the

proportion of Polish men with higher education was 9.9%, whereas among immigrant men it

amounted to 38.0%. Furthermore, in 2007, the rate of employment activity (the percentage of the

working age – between 15 and 64 years old – population who are currently employed) was on

average higher than the corresponding rate for Poles, 62% as compared to 53%.7

3.1.6 RO: General data.

Since the end of the communism period - the beginning of the 90’s, the number of

immigrants coming to Romania increased. In 1991, there were 1.602 persons and the following

years the number has increased: between 1991 and 2001 the number of immigrants was around

10.000 people per year, then 6.586 in 2006, reaching a total of 10.627 people in 2011. These

changes are a reason why Europe, institutions, business and people have to consider Romania

7 Górny et al. 2010, p. 23; Kępioska 2007, p. 16-18).


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from a new perspective in relation to immigration.

The figure nº4 shows the evolution of the number of migrants during the period 2005 -

20098.

The number of immigrants per year increased significantly between 2007 and 2008 due to

Romania’s EU accession, which implied opportunities for the international trade in Europe and for

the movement of people. During this period, the total number of immigrants increased by 40% on

average (more than 17.383 persons).

Concerning the immigrant’s profile, there are different types: refugees, asylum askers,

workers, students or business man. Most of them are men, but the ratio between men and

women is quite equilibrated, in 2006, women represented 47 and men 53%. Regarding the

immigrants’ age, the most representative category is composed by people from 26 to 50 years old,

as this is the part which presents more interest for the market labor (it represented an average of

50% to 59% during the period 1991-2006). The locations exhibiting the highest interest for

immigrants are the urban environment and - most of all - the capital Bucharest.

The immigrant workers in Romania originate from more than 65 countries of the globe.

The following figure draws a more precise overview of this aspect. In the first half of the year 2009,

8 Romanian Office for Immigration

Figure 4: Number of immigrants with right to stay in Romania 2005-2009.

Source: Romanian Office for Immigration


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almost 60% of the total number of immigrants in Romania came from three countries: Moldavia

(28%), Turkey (17%) and China (14 %). Considering their region of origin, the Eastern countries are

the most important source of immigrants in Romania9.

Immigration is highly concentrated in certain areas of Romania. For instance, 41% of the

total foreigners with right to stay are registered as residents in Bucharest. Nearly 80% percent of

immigrants are concentrated in Bucharest and in other 9 regions.

3.1.7 DE: General data.

Germany has a long term immigration history. After the Second World War and until 1973,

Germany focused on the recruitment of low-skilled foreign labour. Many of these “guestworker”

settled and their children became the “second generation” of persons with an immigrant

background. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe came to

Germany, followed by an immigration flow of humanitarian migrants, e.g. from former Yugoslavian

countries.

German statistics only distinguish along nationality lines. Ethnic immigrants with German

nationality are not recorded as immigrants, although they face difficulties similar to those of other

9 ORI, National Romanian Office for Immigration, 30.06.2009.

Figure 5: Distribution of immigrant with right of residence in Romania, considering their country of origin. 2009.

Source: ORI, National Romanian Office for Immigration.


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migrant groups10. Assessment based on nationality is also problematic since immigrants with a

foreign nationality have increasingly and selectively taken up German citizenship.

Migration in Germany is characterized by a high heterogeneity of immigration

constellations. There is now a differentiation of the immigration constellation according to the

individual and family migration situation (first, second, third generation) and according to the legal

status (German, non-German). This is definitely a step forward in order to be able to better analyse

the situation of migrants in Germany and undertake adequate measures.

In 2009, the 81.802.257 persons lived in Germany, 7.130.919 had no German nationaly, this

means 8,7% of the German population is a foreigener.11

Country of origin / nationaly

Born in Germany

% Born outside

Germany % Total

Turkey 547.101 33,0% 1.110.982 67,0 % 1.658.083

Italy 156.614 30,3% 360.860 69,7% 517.474

Poland 15.292 3,8% 383.221 96,2% 398.513

Greece 77.143 27,7% 200.920 72,3% 278.063

Croatia 49.011 22,2% 172.211 77,8% 221.222

Other states 456.351 12,6% 3.165.070 87,4% 3.621.421

Total 1.301.512 19,4% 5.393.264 80,6% 6.694.776

Table 1: The five most common nationality groups in Germany according to the country of birth (31.12.2009).

Source: Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (2011). http://www.bamf.de/DE/Infothek/Statistiken/Auslaenderzahlen/auslaenderzahlen-node.html. Retrieved 15.5.2011

3.1.8 Conclusions.

Immigration, understood as the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the

purpose of permanent residence, brings both economic and social opportunities and challenges to

countries receiving immigrants. At the same time, immigration is now at the forefront of European

10 Liebig, T. (2007), “The Labour Market Integration of Immigrants in Germany”, OECD Social, Employment and

Migration Working Papers, No. 47, OECD Publishing.

11 Statisitisches Bundesamt (2009) http://www.statistik-portal.de/statistik-portal/de_jb01_jahrtab2.asp. Retrieved:

15.5.2011

http://www.bamf.de/DE/Infothek/Statistiken/Auslaenderzahlen/auslaenderzahlen-node.html

http://www.statistik-portal.de/statistik-portal/de_jb01_jahrtab2.asp


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and national policy agendas.12 From the above presented different scenarios, three main

conclusions can be drawn:

1. PT, ES, UK, IT and DE present more similar scenarios. In all of these countries the number of

immigrants increased since the middle of 21st Century being nowadays an important part

of general population living in these countries. The creation of European Union, which

means the free labour movement within the EU, stimulated greatly this fact.

2. RO situation is different as it is “new” immigrant recipient. It is converging to the trends

experimented by other European countries. Only since the end of the communism period -

the beginning of the 90’s, the number of immigrants coming to Romania increased. The

number of immigrants per year increased significantly between 2007 and 2008 due to

Romania’s EU accession, which implied opportunities for the international trade in Europe

and for the movement of people.

3. PL presents a different scenario: it is one of the most nationally homogenous countries in

Europe and the entire globe. Despite the fact that it can still be described as a net

emigration country, during last years the slowly growing influx of immigrants has been

observed.

The following table summarizes the information provided by these different scenarios:

CO. Main immigrant

communities

Amount Location Profile Other relevant

comments

PT Two main groups:

1- Brazil, Cape Vert, Angola

and Guinea Bissau;

2- Ukraine, Romania and

Moldova.

450.000

people

(2009)

Portuguese

capital: Lisbon

and

surrounding

areas.

They are under skilled

and less qualified than

native born people.*

(However, there are

differences between

communities)

Trends:

1. Immigrant

population is constantly

growing.

2. Nº of unemployed

immigrants increased

since 2008. (35.000 in

May 2011).

12 http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-08-098/EN/KS-SF-08-098-EN.PDF


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ES Three main groups:

1- Ecuador, Colombia,

Argentina, Bolivia and Perú.

2- People from EU-27.

3- People from North

Africa: Morocco.

6,7 mln.

(2011)

Madrid and its

surrounding

areas,

Mediterranean

areas and

Islands.

The location

differs

according to

their

nationality

53% men and 47%

women (2009).

76% have between 20

and 65 years old.

Trends:

1. Immigrant

population is constantly

growing.

UK Colonies and other

territories of the British

Empire - such as India,

Bangladesh, Pakistan, the

Caribbean, South Africa,

Kenya and Hong Kong -

under British nationality

law.

518,00013

(June

2009)

- - -

IT Five main groups:

1- Romanian, 2- Albanian,

3- Morocco, 4- Chinese,

5- Ukrainian.

4,25 mln

(2010)

1. Migrants’

contribution to public

entries is much higher

than what they receive

in terms of social

service.

2. They contribute to

11% of the GDP of Italy

by paying taxes for

387bln.

PL Five main groups:

1- Ukraine, 2- Russia, 3-

Belarus, 4-Vietnam; 5-

97,100

people

(2010,

Warsaw

district and

other highly

urbanized

Younger and better

educated than Polish

citizens.

Low stock of foreigners

is a result of very

limited immigration to

Poland. The collapse of

13 http://www.workpermit.com/news/2010-03-02/uk/uk-immigration-statistics-show-immigration-decline.htm


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Armenia with valid

residence)

regions. Iron Curtain and joining

the EU has even

deepened the

emigration trend.

RO Three main groups:

1- Moldavia; 2- Turkey; 3-

China

59,184

(2009)

Urban

Environment-

most of all-

Bucharest

and in other 9

regions

There are:

Refugees, Asylum

askers, workers,

students or business

man.

The ration between

women and men is

equilibrated

Age: most

representative

category: from 26 to

50

The employed people

represented only 16%

of the immigrants

DE Three main groups:

1- Turkey; 2-Italy; 3- Poland

81,802,257

people

(2009)

- Migrants have lower

qualifications as the

national population

and they often work in

the tertian sector

(overall in

Gastronomy)

Among immigrants,

unemployment rate is

19,1%, and it is higher

in the case of women

(overall within Turkish

community).

Table 2: Comparative analysis. Immigrants in PT, ES, UK, IT, PL, RO and DE.

Source: National Need Analysis Repots

The following figure published by MIPEX (Migrant Integration Policy Index) classifies the EU

countries according to their immigrant integration policies.


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Figure 6: Classification of countries according to their immigrant integration policies.

Source: MIPEX.2011

According to this information, project countries could be classified into 3 groups:

1st group: is formed by PT, ES and IT with 79, 63 and 60 points respectively. These countries

have slightly favourable integration policy;

2nd group: is formed by UK and DE, each one with 57 points. These countries have halfway

favourable integration policy and

3er group: is formed by RO and PL, with 45 and 42 points respectively. These countries

have slightly unfavourable integration policy.

3.2 Labour situation of immigrants. Different scenarios.


Portugal enjoys a very positive scenario concerning the labor market integration of

immigrants. The employment rate of immigrants in Portugal is, in general terms, higher than those

of native-born (75,4% against 73,6% in 2006) and one of the highest among OECD countries (OECD,

2008a).

There are at least three reasons that explain this positive situation. Firstly, it is important

to highlight that a substantial part of immigrants in Portugal work within the informal market, not

counting for this kind of statistics. Secondly, there has been an increase of the demand for


20

]

immigrant work: low-paid and under-skilled jobs, mostly informal, that are not occupied by native-

born people (Peixoto, 2008). Thirdly, the immigrant-friendly legislation adopted by the Portuguese

government facilitated the regularization of illegal immigrants (with the attribution of residence

and work permits) and, as a consequence, their integration in the labor market (Peixoto, 2008).

According to the Planning and Strategy Unit (GEP) of the Ministry of Labor and Social

Solidarity (MTSS), there has been an increase on the number of unemployed immigrants since

2008, reaching a total of more than 35.000 in May 2011. Still, this represents only 6,6% of the total

unemployed people in Portugal for this month.

Immigrant workers in Portugal are generally under skilled. According to MTSS, 65% had

only the primary school level (40% had either the 1st or 2nd cycle and 25% had the 3rd cycle) in

2008. Furthermore, only 8% of the immigrant workforce had a graduation or a master degree14.

As a result, immigrants in Portugal are generally less qualified than native-born people and,

as a result, tend to occupy low-skills positions. However, this under-skilling situation of foreign-

born people in Portugal is not valid for all immigrant communities living in Portugal. Accordingly,

there is a substantial gap between the qualifications of immigrants from Portuguese-speaker

countries and from European countries (see Figure 8), leading to an “overqualification”

phenomenon (that is, high qualified professionals working on low-skilled jobs), especially among

Eastern European immigrants.

Regarding salaries and according to MTSS, immigrant employee in Portugal received a

monthly average income 15,7% inferior to that received by native-born employee in Portugal in

2007. However, MTSS also indicates that when considering the monthly average income,

immigrants are better paid than native-born when occupying intermediate and senior positions.


According to the National Immigrant Survey made by INE in 2007, the main reasons for

emigrating to Spain were the demand for a better job, and 26% cited joblessness, whereas in the

case of women, these proportions were 32% and 20%, respectively. In turn, family regrouping was

14 The levels indicated in Figure 6 are those from the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). Level 0

refers to the pre-primary school; levels 1 and 2 refer to the primary school; level 3 refers to secondary school; level 4 refers to post-secondary and non-tertiary school; level 5 refers to tertiary school (graduation and an master degree) and level 6 refers to Ph.D.


21

]

the main reason for women to move (39% as compared with 26% for men).

22.5% of employed immigrants with over three years’ residence in Spain were qualified

professionals. 9.3% were uneducated or had not finished primary education.

In 2007, 38% of employed immigrants with over three years’ residence were working in a

different occupation from the one in which they embarked on their career in Spain. On analysis of

the career progression of immigrants, it was shown that the occupations in which a greater

proportion of immigrants remained with regard to those who had started were Business

management and Public Administrations (84.3%) and Technicians and scientific and intellectual

professional (81.3%). On the other hand, only 31.9% of workers skilled in agriculture and fishing

remained in that occupation.

Figure 7: Spain for over three years by initial and current occupation.

Source: INE data. National Immigrant Survey.2007

Considerable turnover by branch of activity was also observed. Indeed, 44% of employed

immigrants who had been resident in Spain over three years changes activity. In this sense, the

branches with the lowest proportion of immigrants remaining in the activity in which they started

were Fishing (25.8%), Agriculture (31.5%) and extractive industries (42.5%).

On the other hand, 73.1% of those in employment who began working in Construction

remained in this sector.


The latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics show that the employment rate to

March 2011 for people of working age was 70.7 per cent. The number of people in employment


22

]

aged 16 and over increased 416,000 on the year to reach 29.24m, a loss of 332,000 jobs compared

to the pre-recession peak of 29.57m recorded in May 2008. There are 13.63m men and 7.67m

women in full-time employment.

The unemployment rate to March 2011 was 7.7 per cent of the economically active

population. Unemployment fell by 36,000 to reach 2.46 million. There are 1.43m men and 1.03m

women unemployed.

According to The Migration Observatory (Characteristics and Outcomes of Migrants in the

UK Labour Market, March 2011) the employment rate for migrants since 1993 has been lower than

that of nationals. In recent years, the difference between migrant and UK-born employment rates

has narrowed for males, but has stayed constant among females. In 2009, migrants from the eight

Eastern European nations that joined the EU in 2004 had the highest employment rate (90%

compared to 77% for the male UK-born) but also some of the lowest average wages compared to

migrants from other countries. Male migrants are concentrated in the two highest paid

occupational categories (managerial and professional) while female migrants are more

concentrated in the associate professional (e.g. nurses, financial and investment analysts and

advisers), personal service (e.g. care assistants, educational assistants) and elementary (e.g.

cleaners, kitchen and catering assistants) occupations. Since the late 1990s, migrants’ average

hourly wages have exceeded those of UK-born workers.

The labour market situation for migrants is not even for all groups. Migrants from some

ethnic minority groups are at disadvantage compared to others, including white British people. For

example, ethnic minorities have an employment rate 13 per cent lower than that of the population

as a whole. Also, when in employment, ethnic minorities do less well in terms of pay and

progression. The overall employment rates for ethnic minorities differ significantly between

groups. For example Indians and Chinese have relatively high earnings and employment rates while

Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have some of the worst outcomes, with most black and mixed groups

appearing in the middle, although Caribbean women have a relatively high employment rate. Low

activity rates amongst Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are a major factor in these low

employment rates. Some of the differences in employment rates and earnings between ethnic

minority groups and the population as a whole can be explained by differences such as educational

attainment, but a proportion is due to discrimination on the part of employers. The recession is


23

]

likely to have disproportionately impacted on ethnic minorities.15


The foreign people’s unemployment rates is 12,6% compared to 8,8% of the year before.

However, immigrants’ occupation increases and reaches 8,2%. This is because less qualified jobs,

which immigrants have, are not so considered in the unemployment and employment rates.

In 2009, the workers who were born abroad and who worked in Italy were more than 3 millions of

units (3.807.023). The annual increase (+3%) is lower compared to these registered in 2008 (10,9%)

and especially in 2007 (23%)16.

The division of workers based on geographical area is very stable compared to the years

before: Europe 59,2% (26,3% UE 27 members, 22,9% other nations especially of the Central and

Eastern Europe) Africa 16,8% (only 5,7% in Sub-Saharan Africa), Asia 13,3%, America 9,8%, Oceania

0,3%. Between the immigrants, the majority of them comes from Romania (22,5% of the total),

then people from Albania (7,3%), Morocco (6,7%), Ukraine (4,5%), Mainland China (3,8%).

The percentages concerning occupational qualifications of employees subscribed in INPS

show clearly the marginal role given to immigrants in the national economical productive system,

declaring that they are especially employed in the handiwork sector, with low level of

specialization and in low-profile positions.

Although the medium-high professional and educational level indeed, workers born out of

UE borders employed in Italian firms in more than 4 cases on 5 are employed as workmen (84,1%

1.286.226), in about one case on 13 as apprentices and as employees and only very few people as

managers (0,2%) or directors (0,1%).

This means that in Italy, in 2007, about one workman on 6 came from a nation out of UE

borders (15 members) (16%) while for all the employees, this relation was only one each 10

(10,4%). At the same time, in the employees’ group, the immigrants were only one each 50 (2,3%).

The INPS archive allows to observe as the number of workmen who come from outside UE

on the total is very high especially in the building sector: in 2007, about a quarter of workmen

employed in building sector were immigrants (23,7%). Superior percentages to the average (16%)

15 Tackling Worklessness; a series of ‘how to’ guides for councils and their partners, Improvement & Development

Agency, Mar 2009. 16

CARITAS/MIGRANTES, Immigrazione. Dossier Statistico 2010, Idos, Roma, 2010. p. 237-238


24

]

are found also in “credit and insurance”, in “trade” and in “transports” and “communications”

sectors17.


According to official registry, there were about 50 000 - 60 000 legal foreign workers in 2009

- 2010 in Poland, of whom about 50% comprised permanent residents. The number of granted

work permissions constantly grows: in 2010 Polish authorities issued about 37 100 work permits

whereas in 2009 around 29 300. What needs to be emphasized, the number of issued work

permissions has tripled between 2005 and 2009. During the single 2010 most of work permits

were granted to the citizens of:

- Ukraine - 13 150 people,

- China - 6 315,

- Vietnam - 2 252,

- Nepal - 2 158,

- Belarus - 1958.

On the other hand, various research institutes estimated that in 2005 around 150 000 - 500

000 undocumented foreigners worked in Poland, as a rule seasonally or occasionally. It means their

share in Poland’s workforce might have equaled to about 1.1 - 3.5%. Most of them were citizens of

the former USSR republics. Due to concealed nature of that phenomenon it is difficult to

determine whether the number of undocumented foreign workers adopts an upward or downward

trend (Górny et al. 2009, p. 32). It seems, however, that thanks to joining the Schengen Area and

the implementation of simplified procedures for employment of seasonal workers the number of

undocumented immigrants fell down. Nowadays, the scale of illegal immigration to Poland is not

significant. In 2010, the Border Guard (Straż Graniczna) detained 2 170 foreign nationals who

illegally crossed or attempted to cross the Polish border. During the control within the territory of

Poland 1 893 aliens without valid documents for entry or residence in the territory of Poland were

apprehended. Furthermore, in 2010, the Polish authorities made the decision to expel 1 669

foreigners and another 6 606 foreigners were obliged to leave the Polish territory (Nowa polityka

migracyjna Polski 2011).

17 CARITAS/MIGRANTES, Immigrazione. Dossier Statistico 2010, Idos, Roma, 2010. p. 243-245


25

]

As far as the sectoral distribution of immigrants’ employment is concerned, about 1/4 of all

foreigners work in trade and wholesale retail (about 26% of all immigrants). Other important

economic activities undertaken by foreigners are education (18%) and manufacturing (12%). The

predominance of these sectors proves that Polish employers mostly look for qualified workers. On

the other hand, significant numbers of foreigners also work in sectors of restaurants and catering,

construction and house services, which in general require lower qualifications. Furthermore, it is

more probable many workers for low-skilled jobs may be employed in an unregistered way (Górny

et al. 2009, p. 35)

3.2.6 RO: General data

In 2009, a half of immigrants who received a temporary right to stay in Romania had a family

member who is Romanian citizen or came to study in Romania. The employed persons represented

only 16% of the immigrants.

The following figure represents the distribution per number and activities of immigrants with a

temporary right to stay in Romania in 2009:

Figure 8: Distribution per number and activities of immigrants with a temporary right.

Source: ORI, Romanian Office for Immigration.


26

]

3.2.7 DE: General data

The national integration report18 published by the Federal Office for Migrants and Refugees

based on the Microsenzus data of 2009 states that the migrants have in general a lower

employment rate as nationals.

According to the same report the employment rate of migrant men is higher as for women.

Migrant women have the lowest employment rate (53%). This is especially true for Turkish women,

only one third is employed. Women with an ethnic migration background as well as from Croatia

and Italy have the highest employment rate amongst migrant women. For men the situation is

similar: Men with an ethnic migration background reach almost the same level of employment as

nationals (83%). Men from Turkey, Serbia and Russia have the lowest employment rates.

Migrants have lower qualifications as the national population, thus they often work in the

tertian sector and more specifically in the gastronomy. The second largest group works in the

primary sector.

The migration background, i.e. if born and grew-up in and outside Germany, has a strong

influence on the employment situation, especially for the female population. Women that grew-up

in Germany are often employed as those that grew-up outside Germany.

In 2009 the unemployment rate in Germany was on average 8,3% the unemployment rate

for the migration population was on average 19,1%.

3.2.8 Conclusions.

The first important aspect is that the labour situation of immigrants not only differs

between the project countries, also between the main immigrant communities within the same

country.

Portugal presents among all scenarios the better one for the labour insertion of immigrants.

This is thanks to the combination of three factors: the informal market counts with a substantial

part of immigrants, the increase of demand of immigrant work and the national legislation, which

facilitates the regularization process.

However, from the information above presented there are some common aspects that can

18 Seebaß, K.; Siegert, M (2011). Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge. Integrationsreport: Migranten am

Arbeitsmarkt in Deutschland (2011), Working paper 36, Reihe „Integrationsreport“ Teil9. Nürnberg.


27

]

be highlighted:

- In general, immigrants have lower employment rate being this rate higher among men

than among women. In Germany for example, between Turkish women, only one third is

employed.

- The migration backgrounds together with the educational attainment or the discrimination

are factors which affects the labour situation of immigrants.

- There are differences between communities, and ethnic minority groups are at

disadvantage compared to others. This is the case of UK, where Indians and Chinese have

relatively high earnings and employment rates while Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have

some of the worst outcomes.

- Immigrant workers are generally under skilled, with basic educational background. They

usually work in the tertian sector (i.e providing gastronomy services). Their salaries are

lower and they access to low level of specialization jobs with low-profile positions.

3.3 Immigrant entrepreneurship. Different scenarios.


Following the trends of other OECD countries, the rate of entrepreneurship among

immigrants in Portugal has been increasing and is higher than the rate of native-born people19. Due

to the lack of precise information and contradiction of sources of information, the percentage is

relatively low – 4%, according to the data of MTSS.2

However, as there are differences in terms of qualification among the immigrant

communities in Portugal, tendencies for entrepreneurship also differ among those communities in

the country. European immigrants (either coming from other EU or Eastern European countries)

account for 50%, approximately, of the immigrant employers in Portugal (see Figure 9). On the

other hand, South American immigrants (mostly Brazilians) and PALOP immigrants represent the

majority of the immigrant employees working in Portugal. The data regarding Asian immigrants

also indicate an entrepreneurial tendency, mainly due to the presence of Chinese on the retail

19 Oliveira, 2011; Peixoto, 2008.


28

]

market.

These trends are confirmed and reinforced when analyzing the entrepreneurship rate of

immigrants according to the country of origin. As depicted from the picture below, immigrants

from EU-countries – as well as from China – are the most entrepreneurial, while the immigrants

coming from South America (Brazil and Venezuela), PALOP and Eastern European countries are the

less entrepreneurial.

Immigrant entrepreneurs in Portugal tend to work in the so-called lower end of the market

– that is market sectors with the following characteristics (Oliveira, 2011):

- Low barriers of entry (minimal capital requirements and educational qualifications

demands);

- Small-scale production;

- Low added value;

- Labor-intensive work.

As a consequence, immigrant entrepreneurs are concentrated in sectors such as

construction, retail and catering.

As occurred in terms of qualifications and entrepreneurial behavior, immigrant

communities differ in the preferred sector to launch their own business. Accordingly, in 2008,

77,7% of the Chinese entrepreneurs were integrated in the retail sector, while PALOP-origin

immigrants, Ukrainians and Moldavians entrepreneurs were concentrated on the construction

sector –64%, 48% and 74%, respectively, of the total amount of entrepreneurs within these

communities. Brazilians, on the other hand, had a more diverse investment pattern, with 21,3%

focusing in construction, 15,6% in retail and 14,7% in catering (Oliveira, 2010).

Most of immigrant-owned business in Portugal is small or medium enterprises (SME)3:

83,5%. The Chinese-owned business presents the highest rate of SME (95%), while Cape Verdeans

and Moldavians have the lowest percentage – which is still relatively high (68% and 71%,

respectively) (Oliveira, 2010). These differences may be due to the different sectors in which these

immigrant communities are focused on: the Cape Verdeans and Moldavians are concentrated on

the construction sector, which is more labor-intensive than the retail sector, in which the Chinese

community is focused on.



29

]

In Spain, entrepreneurial culture has improved over the years, and the position of Spain in

the GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) country classification has gradually improved in

comparison with other European countries, raising from a TEA (Total Early Stage Entrepreneurial

Activity) of 4.59% in 2002, to a TEA of 5.15% in 2004 (7th in the European Union) and a TEA of

7.27% in 2006 (4th)20.

This improvement is partly a result of the economic situation, which in recent years has been

highly favourable to the Spanish economy, with business opportunities proliferating and the

possibility of creating a business becoming increasingly attractive.

But it also has to do with recent efforts made by Spain to promote entrepreneurial spirit,

with initiatives promoted by the central and regional governments alike, either through one day- or

one week- events devoted to the entrepreneurs,21 or through web pages spreading the

entrepreneurial culture: for example, information is facilitated online and companies can now be

created via the Internet.22

The following figure shows the evolution of the percentage of population that are

entrepreneurs in each collective according to their origin.

Figure 9: % of population that are entrepreneurs (TEA) in each collective according to their origin

Source: GEM España Instituto de Empresa. 2007

20 Information taken from www.gemconsortium.org.

21 Information taken from www.emprendemosjuntos.es

22Information taken from: www.ipyme.org/IPYME/esES/EmprendedoresCreacionEmpresas/IniciativaEmprendedora.

http://www.gemconsortium.org/

http://www.emprendemosjuntos.es/


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]

From 2005 to 2007, the percentage of entrepreneurs’ immigrants from EU countries

increased whereas in the case of immigrants from other countries, this data decreased. This figure

confirms the statement commented at the beginning of the section: “immigrant population is

generally more entrepreneurial compared with the average population”.

According to the data published by the Ministry of Labour and Immigration, from April 2010

to April 2011, the number of immigrants’ entrepreneurs officially affiliated to the Social Security

increased showing a positive trend. The situation among national entrepreneurs was completely

opposite.

Why this difference?. From 2005 to 2007, 24% of total immigrants were entrepreneurs. This

percentage was only 6.5% in the case of national workers. In terms of activity sectors, Commerce

and hotel industry were the main sectors. Immigrants had a better attitude to face the crisis; they

reoriented their effort towards the self employment, creating more SME. During the first 6 months

of 2011 immigrants created more businesses than national entrepreneurs. Among these

immigrants, the Chinese collective is appearing as an important group: the number of immigrants

affiliated to the Social Security as self employer increased 15%, being the first collective followed

by Rumanian entrepreneurs. 23

Regarding the profile of immigrant entrepreneurs, in 2007, there were more men

entrepreneurs 56.8% than women, 43.2%. However, studies have showed that women have more

enterprising ability. 24 There is a clear difference between the type of businesses created by

women, who prefer to start businesses in service sector, and the type of businesses created by

men, who start companies like restaurants, development of products, and specialized services.

Figure 10: Immigrant entrepreneurs by gender. 2007.

Source: Estudio EOI El perfil del inmigrante emprendedor y de sus negocios, EOI 2007

23 http://www.parainmigrantes.info/el-relevante-papel-del-emprendedor-inmigrante-en-espana-357/

24 Information taken from: http://www.eoi.es/savia/pubman/item/eoi:12150:6/component/eoi:12149/2007_04.pdf

http://www.eoi.es/savia/pubman/item/eoi:12150:6/component/eoi:12149/2007_04.pdf


31

]

Regarding the origin of immigrant entrepreneurs, more than a half of them come from Latin

America (In 2007, 54.1%. See figure 7). According to the data extracted from a study developed by

EOI, in 2007, the educational background of immigrant entrepreneurs was characterized by the

following features (See Figure 8):

- 59.7% of total immigrant entrepreneurs had basic education, and only 36.3% higher

education.

- Among non EU workers, people from Latin America had more educational level. In the

opposite situation there are immigrants from Morocco and other parts of Africa. 70.8% of

them had basic education.

Figure 11: Distribution of immigrant entrepreneurs according to their origin. 2007


Educational level Origin countries

Eastern Europe Morocco and other

parts of Africa

Latin America Other Countries

Basic 60.0 70.8 54.9 58.3

High 38.2 26.4 39.6 41.7

Master degree 0.0 0.0 1.8 0.0

Without studies 0.0 1.4 1.2 0.0

Figure 12: Educational background of immigrant entrepreneurs according their origin country. 2007



32

]

With regards to the type of businesses created by immigrants, in 2007, La Caixa Foundation

published a study which classifies them in 5 types and gives additional information like location,

work force employed, profile, customers and examples:

1 TYPE: Circuit businesses They had born as consequence of migration process. They are the archetype of transnational

commercial enterprises. They maintain the flow of tangible and intangible resources between

the origin and destination countries. (i.e Travel agencies, post offices).

2 TYPE: Cultural businesses These enterprises want to promote the identity of the origin country among the immigrants

established in a place. (i.e press, music production)

3 TYPE: Companies with ethnic

orientation

These are those companies which want to sell products/services to the community

4 TYPE: Micro companies There are companies created as consequence of remittances

5 TYPE: Expansive transnational

companies

There are companies created in the origin country that then opened franchises in the

destination countries.

Table 3: Classification of businesses created by immigrant in Spain

Source: El empresariado inmigrante en España. Fundación la Caixa. 2007

Table 4: Typology of companies managed by immigrants (property of immigrants)

Source: El empresariado inmigrante en España. Fundación la Caixa. 2007


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]


The Ethnic Dimension

Ethnic minorities in the UK account for eight per cent of the population. In some areas of

London, ethnic minorities account for over fifty per cent of the local population.

There has been an increase in ethnic minority businesses in the UK, in particular London.

More people from minority ethnic than white backgrounds are starting their own businesses. The

most entrepreneurial groups are black Africans, who are more than three times more likely to start

a business than their white counterparts. However, their business failure rate is also higher than

that of any other group.

The reason for the high business start- ups of the ethnic minorities could be their desire to

exercise more control over their lives and careers or, less positively, because they are unable to

find employment in the mainstream economy due to labour disadvantage and other socio-cultural

constraints.

The cultural diversity between ethnic minority groups in London is reflected in differences in

business entry motives, patterns of finance, the nature of business activity, women’s involvement

in business, and the extent of their dependence on the same or a similar ethnic labour force. An

increasingly competitive environment forces businesses to be market orientated. The extent to

which ethnic minority businesses have adopted market orientation is not clear and there is very

little empirical study in this area.

Important barriers are affecting the performance of ethnic minority businesses, including

poor access to credit (partly as a result of not having assets to offer as collateral), improvised

customer base, inadequate premises in poor locations, discrimination, and racism. In addition

many ethnic minority entrepreneurs lack management skills and also finance to grow their

businesses25. Nevertheless, it is estimated that in the UK ethnic minority owned businesses

number 250,000 and contribute £13bn per annum to the country’s economy.

25 Ethnic Minority Businesses: Challenges and Agenda for Research, F. Ngozi Ekwulugo, University of Westminster,

2010


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On Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Since the 1990s, new waves of immigration have added demographic complexity to British

society. Compared to their long-settled South Asian, African-Caribbean and Chinese predecessors,

new migrants are more diverse in terms of nationality, occupation and gender. In a high mobility

age of e-communication, they tend also to be transnational in orientation, often in constant

contact with home countries and Diasporas, from which they sometimes draw business support

(Ram et al 2008).

In general new wave migrants come from Eastern Europe (the so called A8 countries), Africa

and the Middle East (AME). According to Ram new wave migrants reproduce many of the features

of predecessor minorities. Irrespective of geographical origins or personal characteristics, migrant

business owners tend to follow similar rules if they wish to survive in a system which does not

allow for exotic exceptions. A recent study illustrated the super-diversity present in recent

migrants; the businesses in the sample had 22 national origins represented and there was diversity

too in respect of immigration status and migration motives. A fundamental division occurred

between economic and political migrants. Most of the economic migrants were from Eastern

Europe, who are EU citizens freely entitled to enter the UK for work purposes, while nearly half of

the African and Middle East respondents were refugees with either indefinite or discretionary

leave to remain. The remainder of AMEs were a combination of British citizens (secured after a

period of naturalisation), European citizens (for example 16 Somalis with Dutch citizenship), work

permit holders and students. The study also found a concentration of new businesses in a narrow

range of economic sectors such as low-end retail, catering, and personal services. This pattern was

common to Eastern European and Africa and Middle East migrants.


During 2009 the individual firms created by people born outside from European Union’s

borders were 37.645. Compared to the year before, the total of the individual firms owned by

immigrant people who come from nations which do not belong to UE is more than 10.000 units (in

2008 the increase was of more than 15.000 units), reaching in this way the value of 251.562 firms,

the 4,5% more than in 2008 (when development was of about 7%).


35

]

Enterprises inscripted Imprese registered Balance

2009 37.645 26.849 10.796

2008 36.694 21.615 15.079

2007 37.531 21.053 16.478

Table 5: Inscriptions, registers and balance of enterprises. 2007-2009

Source: Unioncamere-InfoCamere-Movimprese

In the middle of the crisis, the vitality of immigrant entrepreneurship is very strong, although

difficulties of the moment can be found on both sides of demographic trends: compared to 2009,

indeed, we can observe a deceleration of subscriptions and in the same time, a strong increase of

cessations. Consequently, the balance of 2009, even if it is in active, highlights a resizing compared

to the year before.

The more representative geographical area between new subscriptions of last year is China:

the owners born in this nation are about 7.327 (almost 1.000 more than in 2008) who have

enrolled themselves in the Chamber of Commerce registers. Then there are people born in

Morocco (6.713 new owners, almost 900 units more than the year before) and people born in

Albania (4.317 new owners).

All together, these first three nations determine 48,8% of new subscriptions in 2009. In total

– and excluding the areas of major tradition of migration for Italians, such as Switzerland, Northern

America and some nations of Southern America – with over 90.000 people, the main area of the

immigrant entrepreneurship in Italy is Africa, and Morocco (48.059 business owners) is the first

nation. Then, there are Senegalese people (13.568), Tunisians (11.217), Egyptians (10.393) and

Nigerians (6.014).

In absolute terms, the major area of immigrant entrepreneurship is Lombardia, which has

45.953 firms and 18,3% of them have an immigrant owner (in 2008 the total was 18,6%). However,

Tuscany is the region which has more immigrant entrepreneurs compared to the number of

individual firms: 26.908 on 222.061, 12,1% (date which is growing compared to 11,4% in 2008).

From a provincial point of view, the first city is Prato which, speaking about local entrepreneurship,

reaches more than 32% of all the individual firms of the area.

On the contrary, between all the regions, Basilicata has less firms with an immigrant owner

(2,4% of the total of individual firms of the region, 2,3% in 2008) while, between provinces, Enna

has less firms with immigrant owners (1,5%).


36

]

Moreover, immigrant women’s contribution was very important to develop female

entrepreneurship in 2009. Female individual firms with a female owner were more than 49.000

units at the end of 2009, the 6,4% more than in 2008. Concerning the territorial area, apart from

Friuli-Venezia Giulia (where there were not 4 units between this kind of firms at the end of the

year), in all the other regions the results were positive. The highest values are found in Tuscany

(507), Lombardia (485), Veneto (319), Lazio (262), Emilia-Romagna (255) and Piemonte (223). In

relative terms, the highest increase was in Tuscany (+10%), Valle d’Aosta (+9,8%), Umbria (+9,3%),

Veneto (+8,2%), Sardinia (+7,0%), Emilia-Romagna and Liguria (both + 6,9%)26.

The foreign component is more important in developing the Italian entrepreneurship system

and in the same way, there is a gradual increase in the guaranteed support for creating added

value. The Centro Studi Unioncamere and the Instituto Guglielmo Tagliacarne27 have updated

calculation of the added value to the year 2008 deriving from the foreign workers for each sector,

based on a research of the internal foreign occupation (both in the UE and outside the UE) for

sector and geographical area.

The update of this study in 2008 shows that it takes an added value of 157 milliards of euro

which comes from foreign occupation compared to last years, we can find an increase of foreign

people involved in the product development of the nation: if in 2005 we have a value of 8,8%, in

2006 a 9,2% and in 2007 a 9,7%, in 2008 value is growing to 11,1% with a different distribution for

each sector. The foreign contribution to the added value is stronger in the building sector (22,8%)

where in the last 4 years, the value is growing of 4,5%. The industry and services sectors develop

more than 2 percentage points, while agriculture which represents the third sector for immigrant

component with a 14,4% of the total added value, is growing of 1,4 point.

Generally speaking, the immigrant entrepreneurs pay more interest rates, 70 points more

than interest rates offered to Italian people: the date comes from a study of the Bank of Italy. In

this study loans given to small firms in Italy were compared from 2004 to 2008, and it was

concluded that not only immigrants are penalised, but they are considered in different ways, the

entrepreneurs who come from Eastern Europe pay 1,3% more, while a Latin-American pay only

26 Centro Studi Unioncamere (a cura di), Rapporto UnionCamere 2010. L’economia reale dal punto di osservazione

delle Camere di commercio, UnionCamere, Milano, 2010 p. 315-316 27 Since 1986, the Instituto Tagliacarne creates economic and statistical analysis and studies on small and medium

enterprises and local economy. Unioncamere is the Italian Confederation of Chamber of Commerce.


37

]

0,20% more. Also for the second generation of immigrants and those who were born abroad but

have Italian origins pay only 0,2 more, but in a loan of 75.000 euro, as those considered in the

study of the Bank of Italy, it is important.

The results of the study show that entrepreneurs who come from Eastern Europe pay a 1,3%

higher interest rates, those who come from Asia pay 0,40% more, who come from Africa 0,85%

more and who come from Latin America more than 20% of the difference. No differences in

interest rates for loans to small firms of people who come from Northern America and aspiring

entrepreneurs from Oceania28.

Country Sole proprietorship Country Sole proprietorship

1) Morocco 48.059 11) Macedonia 4.126

2) China 34.595 12) Brasil 3.949

3) Albania 27.178 13) Peru’ 2.627

4) Senegal 13.568 14) Moldavia 2.613

5) Tunisia 11.217 15) Ucraina 2.479

6) Egypt 10.393 16) Ecuador 2.347

7) Bangladesh 9.515 17) Algeria 2.298

8) Serbia and Montenegro 7.748 18) India 1.845

9) Nigeria 6.014 19) Turkey 1.666

10) Pakistan 5.439 20) Bosnia ed Erzegovina 1.639

(Company registered at 31 December 2009 - Absolute values)

Table 6: Top 20 countries of non- EU origin owner of sole proprietorship



Due to low immigration rate to Poland there is no detailed research on immigrant

entrepreneurship. Few available data sets reveal that in 2005 - 2006 there were only 3 303

instances of permits for self-employment, which comprised 3 398 foreigners. Mostly it applied to

immigrants attempting to work in wholesale and retail trade, followed by sectors of restaurants

28 Albareto G. & Mistrulli P. E., Bridging the gap between migrants and banking system, Banca d’Italia, 2011. p. 5-6


38

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and catering, construction, transport, communication, education and domestic services29.

Despite that, during the next years the further increase of immigration to Poland is

expected (due to, inter alia, emigration of Polish citizens to other EU countries and ageing of Polish

society resulting in growing demand for foreign workforce), the Polish authorities have not yet

developed immigration policy to enhance inflow of certain groups of foreign specialists with

needed skills. What is more, at the moment there are also no specific national actions oriented

towards already residing foreigners, like promoting social inclusion or entrepreneurship among

immigrants.

3.3.6 RO: General data.

The next table30 presents relevant information on the number of immigrant entrepreneurs and the

nature of their businesses as well as on success and failure rates of their businesses. A consistent

part will be dedicated to immigrant versus national entrepreneurship in relation to different key

differential factors such as legislation, requirements, gaps and challenges.

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep

Number 454 533 673 508 486 502 526 474 488

Table 7: New registered commercial companies with foreign participation to social capital, 2010


Documentation, reports and articles found underline some issues related to the creation of

business and establishment of immigrants in Romania. For example, the lack of information and

the complicated bureaucratic system and legislation are important barriers for immigrants, first of

all because of the language, but also because of its complexity: administrative difficulties, many

necessary acts, etc. These sometimes delay the project on long term and can be a problem. Certain

projects had to wait a long period of time and have been required great efforts to be developed as

a business. Nevertheless, opening a business in Romania is not impossible. For example, a lot of

French immigrants who arrived in Romania in the 90’s as company representatives or as employees

to work in subsidiaries of French companies in Romania decided to stay.

29 (Ibidem, p. 38)

30 National Trade Office – Statistical Synthesis No. 145, 2010


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]

Once concluded their contracts, they decided to take advantage of the many opportunities

that they found in Romania, the potential for business and have opened their own companies,

alone or with Romanian partners. They brought with them family, or have founded here families,

bought houses, and were integrated into local communities. In short, they chose Romania as a

second home.

After arrival, immigrants must regulate their citizen status situation in Romania. To set up a

business or economic activity, immigrants must respect and observe numerous rules from the

Romanian law: to have a particular long stay visa for the development of business activity or

economical activity31; then they can apply for the renewal of their right to stay if they have a

business32.

Following the Romanian law, there are no specific investment approvals required for setting

up a business in Romania, but it exists some legal steps that must be followed by immigrants

and/or by legal entities if they want to develop their business, such as registering at the Romanian

Trade Register and at the Fiscal Administration, establishing the status of the company through a

public notary, a lawyer or a legal counselor and VAT registration of the company.

After this first “registration step”, the concerning entities may, during the course of

business, restructure their activities through mergers and acquisitions as stipulated by Romanian

law. These transactions represent one of the best and fastest ways of improving any company’s

commercial and strategic position on the market place. Romania, in the light of EU accession, has

seen a significant increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions over the recent years.

Concerning the legal support, various tax incentives aimed at fostering foreign investment

have been provided by the Romanian legislation over the years. The foreign investment regime

has been affected by continuously changing legislation, particularly in view of the country’s

accession to the European Union. Regarding taxation, Romania’s competitive fiscal regime puts

the country amongst one of the most appealing in the region33.

Previously there were mentioned that some gaps and challenges could be identified, as

rendered below:

31

G.O 194/2000 on the Regime of Aliens in Romania, art. 41 and 43; 32

Ibidem, art. 55. 33

See Regime of Aliens in Romania, Particular policy of taxation for corporations, in Legislation for All, Official Monitor, July 2008.


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]

Finding information, understanding and dealing with Romanian legislation: procedures

seem sometimes to discourage immigrants because of their complexity.

Entering the labor market is also quite difficult for a stranger rather than for a Romanian,

because of the legislation, but also due to the structure of the labor market which is more

rigid. Even with legal papers it is quite difficult for an immigrant to find a work, it appears

easier when the contract has been signed in the country of origin. The law in Romania has

very strict rules on hiring foreigners. In addition to that, taxes related to wages are

considerably different and higher for immigrants in comparison to those for a Roman

employee.

Language: the first relevant thing when you enter the country is the language. To start a

business or even to be able to live in Romania, it is important to have basic language skills

or to start learning Romanian language. Romanian is a Latin language, so this can be an

advantage for an important part of European citizens who wants to establish here: French,

Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. Moreover, English and French are widely spoken in the

businesse environment and in more and more institutions in Romania, in particular in the

big cities, so it should be easier for immigrants to integrate themselves.

Cultural and social aspects: it’s a main issue when you start a business and/or work in

another country than yours. People have to manage this social part as much as possible. It

is called cross cultural management and refers to the relations between employees and

superiors at work, habits and traditions of the people you are going to work and live with,

etc.

Modern History: having an overview and good comprehension of the country where you

are going to stay is also a crucial aspect. Some historical features are very important to

understand the global situation. People have to keep in mind that before 1989, Romania

was under a communist regime, and that implied consequences on everyday life, on the

way of life for its people.

European membership: since 2007, Romania joined the European Union. This is very

important from the point of view of applied rules in international trade with Europe. It

represents a challenge, but also it can be considered as a big opportunity for immigrants

who wants to start and/or carry on a business activity in Romania (we refer here to

European funds and programs too).


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Economic and political overview: it’s very important to understand the issues and

opportunities of the country and city where you want to implant your activity and to try

linking your project to the local realities in an ethical way, following and respecting the

country and inhabitants of Romania. Here there are some examples of changes occurring in

Romania that represents advantages and challenges for business activities: the

continuously improvement of infrastructure (commitment to improve the highway

infrastructure to European standards); highly developed industrial infrastructure, including

oil and petrochemicals; the presence of branch offices and representatives of various well-

known international banks, etc.

Geting information and contacts about different institutions and entities (public and/or

privates) that exists and which can help immigrants to start their activity represents a

facility for potential immigrant entrepreneurs.

Once with its accession to European Union in 2007, Romania can benefit of different types of

financial assistance. For example, for the period 2007-2013, EU allocated to Romania a total of

33.53 billion of Euros – EU founds and National Public contribution – based on which the

Romanian Government established a large number of state aid schemes in order to stimulate the

economic growth. These different supports are important for the national entrepreneurship but

also for the immigrants. In fact, according to the Romanian legislation in force, all investors –

Romanians or foreign citizens, residents or non-residents – have the same rights and incur the

same obligations. These different aids can be granted to large, medium or small-sized companies

(even microenterprises), depending on the type of investment or even on the sector in which the

investment would be implemented: industrial and energy fields, innovative technologies,

environment protection and rehabilitation, development of tourism, electrical and thermal energy

production and consumption, etc. These granted aids can take different forms such as subsidies,

tax exemptions, postponements or reduction, public capital participation, etc.

ARIS – Romanian Agency for Foreign Investment34, an intergovernmental institution – drew

up a (non exhaustive) list of different kind of investments promoting the entrepreneurship among

immigrants in Romania:

34

http://www.arisinvest.ro/, March 2011

http://www.arisinvest.ro/


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(a) Investment incentives :

Government decision no. 1680 from December 2008

Government Emergency Ordinance no. 85 from 24 June 2008

Government Decision no. 718 from 14 July 2008 approving horizontal state

Government decision no. 753 from 16 July 2008

Each of these state aid schemes has particular objectives and for each of them has been

established a ceiling of the financial support, depending on some criteria such as the initial

investment of the company, the creation of workforce expected, the sector of activity which is

going to be developed, and the financial balance of the company…

(b) European Union Funds :

We focused on one of the EU programs meant to the International Organization for

Migration (OIM Romania): “Management and solidarity of migratory flows”. This fund is to be

allocated from the 1 of June of 2010 until the 31 May of 2011. The main objective of this program

is to integrate immigrants within the Romanian society through the development of informational

services and relevant advices to them; it concerns facilities like access to public services, help in the

process of integration, etc. In practice it consists in the implementation and development of 15

information and advices centers. These centers will all benefit from physical infrastructure and

human resources needed in order to be the most efficient possible. They will be implanted in 15

cities of Romania: Bucarest, Bacău, Buzău, Braşov, Cluj, Constanţa, Craiova, Galaţi, Iaşi, Piteşti,

Ploieşti, Sibiu, Suceava, Târgu-Mureş and Timişoara.

European Union also pushes companies to seek financial support from EU structural and

cohesion funds. These funds are designed to promote economic and social cohesion within the

European Union and to reduce regional disparities. The applicants for this grants need to identify

the program which would best fit their projects, and submit the application form at the

responsible authority for being granted. Here is the list of the different existing programs:

The “National Program for Rural Development” managed by the Ministry of Agriculture,

Forests and Rural Development. It supports the restructuring and modernization of

agricultural and forestry products, the processing and marketing sectors, while observing

the principles of sustainable development.

The „Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Program“ 2007 – 2013.

The „Intelligent Energy – Europe“ Program.


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Seventh Research Framework Program (FP7).

LIFE+ Program 2007 - 2013 .

In addition to this “material” supports, other organizations work to promote the

entrepreneurship among immigrants and more generally, to bring advice to this category of

citizens. ORI - Romanian Office for Immigration is a good example in this regard.

3.3.7 DE: General data.

In Germany entrepreneurship is often related with the concept of self-employment, e.g. a

one person small business. Self-employment is often the starting point for a small business.

The data and some of the analysis reflect the outcomes of the Integration report on

Migration and Labor Market from 201135. In 2009, according to figures from the micro census

around 4.2 million people in Germany worked as self-employees, giving a share of 10.9% of the

economically active population.

Among the economically active population with a migration background are approximately

655 000 persons (10.0%) in self-employment, among the population without migration

background 3.5 million (11.1%)36. This makes the self-employed Migrants a non-negligible element

of the labor market. Men are often self-employed a women. Among the different groups of origin

of migrants especially men with Polish (25.9%), Greek (18.9%) and Italian background (14.8%) are

more often self-employed. People with Polish background are frequently services provider as part

of the EU freedom of services. Italians and Greeks belong to the "old-established" self-employed in

trade and catering. Individuals with the (late) ethnic status (men: 7.3%, women: 4.3%) have

relatively low levels of self-employment. Self-employment is often really interesting for migrants,

since the income of self-employed migrants is often higher as for employed people from the same

migration group37).

Since January 2005, special residence permits for employment are being issued (§ 21

Residence Act), if an overriding economic interest or special regional needs exist. According to

assessments by the Central Foreigners Register (AZR) by end of 2009 a total of 6243 third-country

35 Seebaß, K.; Siegert, M (2011). Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge. Integrationsreport: Migranten am Arbeitsmarkt in Deutschland (2011), Working paper 36, Reihe „Integrationsreport“ Teil9. Nürnberg

36Federal statistical office, 2010

37 Constant et al.2003


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nationals had a corresponding residence permit or settlement permit (including 35.6% women),

two-thirds of these were self-employed.. In addition, an unknown number comes from self-

A study on self-employment of migrants at the Institute for SME Research (IFM) at the

University of Mannheim, found that the number of foreign self-employed people is increasing very

fast. Between 1991 and 2004, an increase of 121,000 to nearly 300,000 self-employed took place.

In particular, the human capital (especially education level) affects self-employment

opportunities, in particular the Turks, Italians, Greeks and people from former Yugoslavia, but also

Asians, have significant deficits for establishing a business or being self-employed (Leiss 2006) due

to low qualification. The rate of unskilled workers is higher in migrant population. North- Western

European have the highest rates of self-employment amongst the migrant population, this is a

consequence of the higher qualification level.

Turkish people on the other side have the lowest rate on self-employment. Qualification,

capital and language and cultural issues are difficult to overcome.38

Starting a business can be relatively possible for nearly everyone, but the success, i.e. staying

on the market, is difficult to achieve.

This also explains the relatively low self-employment rate among Turks and Asian people and

the high in the northern and western Europeans. It is not primarily the low-skilled, which can be

freed by the step to independence from unemployment, but rather the unemployed graduates. In

this respect there is little difference between Germans and foreigners.

Immigrants face different obstacles on their way to self-employment and business startup.

According to a recent study39migrants are still not (yet) using existing counseling and support

because it a) does not exist or b) it is not tailored to the needs of migrants. This is exactly the

problem the BestForm is approaching.

According to the SVR 201040, the number of business lead by people with an immigrant

backgrounds, can only be estimated.

38 Light et al. 2005a, Easy / Leiss 2006.

39 Evers, M. [2008] IHK Gründerreport, Deutscher Industrie- und Handelskammertag Bereich Wirtschaftspolitik,

Mittelstand, Innovation – Berlin

40 Sachversändiger Rat, Einwanderungsgesellschaft 2010Jahresgutachten 2010 mit Integrationsbarometer


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The Institute for SME Research at the University of Mannheim estimates the total

employment effect of about two Million jobs (Integration Commissioner 2007a). The Center for

Studies on Turkey believes that in Businesses that are run by Turkish immigrants employed 337.000

in 2007; thus, this figure compared to the value of 1987 (87,000) almost quadrupled.

Between immigrant and non-immigrant entrepreneurs there are still structural differences:

Self-employed nationals are particularly involved in the areas of catering and trade, but relatively

rarely involved in the craft. This is particularly of importance because Gastronomy and trade in

comparison to trade have a high competitive pressure and lower profit margins. In addition, the

bankruptcy rates of business lead by foreigners is significantly higher as from national lead

business.

The SVR study 2010 points out that immigrant entrepreneurs have difficulties for get start

capital for their business. Capital usually comes either from own-savings or from relatives, almost

never from the finance sector or public funding. The study advises to support immigrants in the

financing set-up of their business idea.41

Despite the starting difficulties more unemployed migrant people become their own boss. A

recent survey from the Institute for Labour Market Research (IAB) points out that migrants in

Germany are more courageous than the locals - at least when it comes to the founding of a

company. In the past three and a half years, seven per cent of migrants in the Federal Republic

established a business. In people without a migration background was less than five per cent.

The higher unemployment rates amongst immigrants leads to a higher number of business

start-ups. Additionally the according to the IAB researchers the same role models play an

important role. Many immigrants get inspired by their immigrant friends that succeeded in setting

up a business. Who sees the success of a friend or relative trusts are much more likely to

implement their own business idea into reality.

3.3.8 Conclusions.

Having into account the above mentioned information by countries can be stated that:

There is an increase in the trend of the number of immigrant entrepreneurs in Portugal,

Spain, United Kingdom, Italy and Germany. In Romania and Poland there is no enough

41 (ebd p. 181)


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information to confirm this statement. Immigrants are more entrepreneurial than

nationals and the higher unemployment rates among immigrant leads to a higher number

of business start-ups.

In general, overall in Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and Germany, there are differences

among the existed ethnic communities with regards to business entry motives, patterns

finance, the nature of business activity, women’s involvement in business, the sector in

where create the company...etc.

In Portugal, immigrants from EU countries and China are the most entrepreneurial. In

Spain, immigrants from South America. In UK, the most entrepreneurial groups are black

Africans. In Italy, immigrants from China are the most entrepreneurial. In Germany,

entrepreneurs are Polish, Greek or Italian. No data regarding Romania and Poland.

In general, immigrant men are more entrepreneurs than immigrant women (Spain,

Germany) but however, the trend started changing and female is in some countries more

entrepreneurial than men (Italy).

In all countries, immigrants have specific barriers to become entrepreneurs different from

native people: poor access to the credit, improvised custom base, inadequate premises in

poor locations, discrimination and racism, there are not existing counselling and support

addressed to them, language, cultural and social aspects etc.


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4. Description of the business advice activity oriented to immigrants

4.1 PT: General data.

Portugal is a European country well known for providing an extremely positive integration

policy for immigrants, as the MIPEX demonstrates. The majority of the initiatives aiming at the

integration of immigrants are led by public institutions, including those related to business advice

services.

Initially, it is important to highlight that the promotion of entrepreneurship has been one of

the top priorities of the Portuguese immigration policy. Accordingly, in September 2010 the

government approved the implementation of the 2nd Plan for the Integration of Immigrants. It

contains 90 concrete measures for the promotion of the integration of immigrants in Portugal, one

of them being the stimulation of immigrant entrepreneurship. Under this topic, the following

initiatives are foreseen:

- Reduce the legal barriers for the setup of new business by immigrants;

- Creation of innovative bank products that foster the incorporation of new business by

immigrants;

- Raise awareness regarding microcredit;

- Create a Support Unit for Immigrant Entrepreneurs, together with the Institute for the

Support of Small and Medium Enterprises (IAPMEI). Based on the one-stop-shop format,

the aim of this Unit would be to provide consultancy to entrepreneurial initiatives of

immigrants and to provide tailor-made monitoring through the business incorporation

process.

The Portuguese key-actor in terms of immigrant integration and entrepreneurship promotion

is the High Commissioner for Immigration and Cultural Dialogue (ACIDI), a public institution

directly submitted to the Council of Ministers. Its mission is to collaborate on the conception,

execution and evaluation of the public policies (sectoral and transversal) related to the integration

of immigrants and ethnic minorities, as well to promote dialogue among different cultures, ethnics

and religions.

With the sponsorship of ACIDI, it was implemented in Portugal the broadest initiative of

business support to immigrant entrepreneurs: the Project of Immigrant Entrepreneurship (PEI).


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Launched in 2009, the general goal of the project was to develop an entrepreneurial attitude

and to provide business support to immigrant communities, especially those living in more

vulnerable contexts. The PEI is based in a comprehensive approach towards entrepreneurship,

conceived more as a way of life (option) rather than a struggle for survival (necessity). The project

is structured in 2 essential axis: (i) training; (ii) consulting. The theoretical approach for both is

based on the Tree Model of Entrepreneurial Skills Recognition and Development, conceived by Mr.

José Soares Ferreira (coordinator of the consultancy part of PEI).

The training contents are provided both in individual and group sessions for the potential

immigrant entrepreneurs, in a total of 60 hours per trainer. These sessions focus mainly on the

hard skills necessary to create a new business, such as: business idea development, setup of a

business plan, financial management, legal incorporation of a company, etc.

The trainers were recruited among – Cooperativa Rumo and Associação Cultural Ninho da

Juventude – 2 NGO from the Lisbon metropolitan region that are not immigrant-oriented. The

training sessions were prepared on the basis of the Entrepreneurship Dossier, prepared by Mr. José

Soares Ferreira within another immigrant-related project (K´cidade).

The consultancy is mainly provided by the National Association for Credit Rights (ANDC). It

consists in 4 individual sessions with the immigrant entrepreneur, with 1,5 hour each. These

sessions are focused on structuring the business plan and on guiding the entrepreneur in order to

most effectively address the needs for setting up a new business.

The consultants were either academic or professionally experienced people in the field of

entrepreneurship, also with communicational abilities to transmit information to people with low

educational levels (as is the case of the average profile of immigrant entrepreneurs in Portugal).

Still, an excessive theoretical background and the lack of communicational and interpersonal skills

were indicated as the main problems of the consultants approach towards the potential immigrant

entrepreneurs.

The potential immigrant entrepreneurs were recruited among local immigrant- oriented

associations, associated partners of ACIDI in the PEI. The information related to PEI was obtained

through interviews to ms. Ana Couteiro – manager of PEI in ACIDI – and mr. José Soares Ferreira –

leading consultant of PEI. Throughout the training and consultancy processes, both the trainers

and consultants are encouraged to develop a confidence-building relationship with the immigrant,

stimulating his/her self-stem as a key issue that increases the success rate of the new business. In


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this context, certain soft skills are also developed during the training and consultancy program,

such as motivation, communicational skills, trust-building relationships, self-promotion, marketing,

etc. Still, they are less prioritized in comparison to the hard skills.

For the 2nd edition of PEI, to be implemented throughout 2011, it was foreseen the training

of intercultural mediators and of new trainers and consultants to deal with immigrant

entrepreneurship. In addition to PEI, ACIDI coordinates an institutional network with national

range to support the integration of immigrants in the Portuguese labor market and to promote

entrepreneurship among immigrant communities.

ACIDI manages the National Center of Immigrant Support (CNAI) and its local extensions –

the Local Centers of Immigrant Support and Integration (CLAII). Currently there are 3 CNAI (in

Lisbon, in Oporto and in Faro) and 87 CLAII in Portugal – located in the district capitals and in the

most important urban centers of the country.

Both the CNAI and the CLAII work on the one-stop-shop format. They gather different types

of public institutions and centralize the most important public services provided to immigrants,

dealing with issues such as:

- Immigrant-related documents (visa and residence and work permits);

- Nationality;

- Volunteer return;

- Family support;

- Health;

- Labor market;

- Entrepreneurship;

- Social security;

- Professional training;

- Legal support;

- Support to associations.

The search for entrepreneurial support in the CNAI, however, does not seem to be one of the

most requested services. According to an inquiry undertaken by the International Organization for

Migration (OIM) in 2010 in the CNAI of Lisbon, only 2.6% of immigrants were looking for CNAI´s

support to create their own business. Specific immigrant-related issues - such as visa and

residential permits - were the most requested services.


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The services, both in CNAI and in CLAII, are provided by social-cultural mediators, which were

trained to specifically deal with immigrants. Those mediators are essentially chosen among

members of the very immigrant communities, with the special contribution of local immigrant-

oriented associations. This fact helps ensuring that the immigrants are guided and oriented within

the Center in their own mother tongue and by a person which has their same cultural background.

Furthermore, in January 2011 a manual for the technicians working in the CLAII was

prepared with the aim of training them on intercultural issues as well as on an integration of

proximity policy. The manual was one of the main results of the project entitled Intercultural

promotion at the municipal level, funded by the European Fund for the Integration of Nationals

from Third Countries, which intends to develop intercultural skills among employees of Portuguese

municipalities.

The manual indicates 4 key areas for the activities of local public employees: (i)

empowerment and citizenship promotion; (ii) economic integration; (iii) social integration; (iv)

practice of positive intercultural interactions. The promotion of entrepreneurship is included under

the economic integration field.

In this context, the manual indicates that CLAII technicians should stimulate immigrant

entrepreneurship as a valid path, especially considering the additional difficulties in finding work in

immigrant-traditional sector, such as the civil construction, resulting from the economic crisis

Portugal has been going through. This stimulus may comprise the promotion of policy mechanisms

aiming to facilitate the business setup (such as microcredit) as well as the promotion of successful

past experiences of other immigrant entrepreneurs.

However, the technicians are advised not to propose entrepreneurship as a solution to all

immigrants. Setting up a new business in a period of crises has increased risks, which demands a

more strict business support in terms of business setup, business monitoring and business

management.

The CNAI and the CLAII have also specialized units, which provide technical support in

different areas. Within the labor field, the CNAI and the CLAII have an Employment Support Unit

(Gabinete de Apoio ao Emprego - GAE), which encompass a specific unit of entrepreneurship

support.

In addition to that, the ACIDI and the Institute of Employment and Professional Training

(IEFP) celebrated a partnership for the creation of an Immigrant-oriented Job Centers Network


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(Rede GIP Imigrante-RGI). The RGI encompass 25 Immigrant-oriented Job Centers, distributed

throughout the main urban centers of Portugal (especially in Lisbon and its neighbor regions).

These Job Centers are placed mainly in private not-for-profit organizations (immigrant-oriented

associations), although 2 of them are linked to the GAE of Lisbon and of Oporto. They aim to

facilitate the (re)placement of immigrants in the labor market, providing the following services,

among others:

- Publishing of job and training offers;

- Guidance and orientation towards entrepreneurship, training and

- employment;

- Promotion of EU programs that promote job and professional training

- Mobility.

The professionals accompanying the immigrants are constantly trained in intercultural issues

and work in strict cooperation with the CLAII and CNAI, in order to further a plain integration of

the immigrants in their host communities.

The Portuguese national system of immigrant integration has been clearly recognized as an

inspiring example at the European level. In this context, the CNAI was indicated as a best practice

in terms of integration of immigrants by the European Commission (through the Manual on

Integration for Decision-Makers, Politicians and Professionals). In addition, the GAE was granted

the European Award of Business Initiative, on the grounds of fostering the economic development

and job generation at the local level.

The system was also assessed by the IOM in 2010. Having inquired immigrant-related

associations, CNAI technicians as well as the immigrants themselves on the functioning of the

CNAI, the assessment report produced by IOM provides useful information - both in generic terms

and especifically related to the entrepreneurship support services. The most important conclusions

are summarized as follows:

- lack of consensus among immigrant-related associations on the importance of specific

immigrant-related services - although most of those associations recognize that

immigrants are in need of an specific response that are not provided by mainstream

entities, some organizations emphasize that this might lead to segregation rather than to

the intended integration of the immigrant. These organizations conceive both the ACIDI

and the CNAI as intermediate organs, specialized in orienting the immigrants towards


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]

mainstream services and in raising awareness among public and private entities on the

importance of immigrant integration, by training social-cultural mediators and by

integrating them on the organizational structures of the public and private entities;

- Lack of knowledge of the services provided by the CNAI - immigrants are not familiarized

with the services provided by CNAI - specially those covered by specialized units, such as

the ones related to entrepreneurship support.

- Improvement of the coordination between CNAI, immigrant-oriented associations and

social-cultural mediators - a better coordination among these key actors would allow for a

more effective promotion of CNAI services, as well the strengthening of the CNAI position,

with the provision of more "in-ground" services (closer to the reality of the immigrants);

- The social-cultural mediators play a role of trust-builders - most of the times these

mediators have the same cultural background as the immigrants, which facilitates a trust-

building relationship.

Specifically regarding the entrepreneurial support provided by the CNAI, the following

IOM´s conclusions may be highlighted:

- There is a need to improve the services provided by the entrepreneurship support unit -

the IOM recommends the unit to be more pro-active, not restricting itself to information

and guidance activities. Although the IOM recognizes that efforts have been made in this

way - through the implementation of PEI, which raised awareness on the existence of the

unit and - it is necessary to think on the long-term sustainability of similar initiatives;

- The unit relies on good levels of soft skills and efficiency - the inquiry undertaken by IOM

shows that the technicians working on the entrepreneurship were very well assessed by

the immigrants in terms of sympathy, professionalism, availability and trust building (see

Table 1). The unit also presents high efficiency levels, since 78% of the immigrants seeking

the unit services were very much satisfied with the time they waited for their turn.

- The technical services provided are not fully satisfying - only 50% of the inquired

immigrants indicated that they obtained an effective answer when consulting the CNAI

entrepreneurship unit. Furthermore, the majority of the immigrants indicated that the

information obtained was either unclear or incomplete. This is due to the profile of the unit

which mainly provides information and guidance, not fulfilling the immigrant expectations

of concrete and straight forward answers.


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Table 8: Assessment of the CNAI entrepreneurship unit by the immigrants

Source: OIM, 2010.

4.2 ES: General data.

Spain has a variety of key actors which provides advice activity oriented to immigrants.

According to the British Council and Migration Policy group (www.mipex.eu) Spain is leading the

countries which have more integration capacity. It is ranked in the 8th place with 63 points (being

http://www.mipex.eu/


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100 points the maximum)42.

Spain benefits from slightly favourable policies for integration – now the best of Europe’s

major immigration countries and 2nd among its newest ones, behind PT. Despite cuts affecting all

residents, government maintained and even slightly enhanced long-term commitments to

economic, family, and societal integration.

Figure 13: General situation

Source: http://www.mipex.eu/spain

Figure 14: Classification of countries

Source: http://www.mipex.eu/spain

42 Information taken from http://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20110301/54121607807/espana-lidera-la-integracion-

de-inmigrantes-en-europa.html

http://www.mipex.eu/spain



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The Spanish key actors in terms of business advice are public and private entities, trade

unions, non profit organisations and associations of immigrant communities. In some cases these

institutions cooperate and join efforts in order to give a better advice to immigrants.

At public level, the Spanish Labour and Immigration Ministry together with Trade Unions

created a special program to support and promote business starts ups by immigrants. This

initiative is supported by the European Social Fund. For more information visit the site:

https://www.e-inmigrantes.net/IFE_IN/index.htm (available only in Spanish). This program wants

to:

- Encourage the equal labour opportunity.

- To make aware the immigrants towards the self

employment.

- Create and consolidate the businesses created by immigrants.

- Promote and encourage the use of ICT.

The program is being developed through a net of offices that offer advice and information

(also on-line).

The National Federation of Self employers (ATA in Spanish), has a special blog to advice

immigrant entrepreneurs http://autonomosinmigrantesata.blogspot.com. The blog contains

relevant information for immigrants who want to create their business such as training courses,

administrative procedures, news...

At private level, there are interesting actions developed by associations like the following

one: “Emprendedores inmigrantes en red” (http://www.eired.es/).

The project promoter is Cirilo y Metodio Association, located in Madrid. The project has the

official support from the regional government. The project wants to offer an individualize advice

(online and face to face) service to immigrants who live in Madrid. With this project the

association pretends to prepare immigrants as entrepreneurs in the self employment field,

promoting the exchange of experiences. They also offer training courses. The webpage contains a

blog, a photo gallery and a virtual space (only accessible after registration). This association was

interviewed for the elaboration of the third part of this report.

https://www.e-inmigrantes.net/IFE_IN/index.htm

http://autonomosinmigrantesata.blogspot.com/

http://www.eired.es/


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4.3 UK: General data.

SME Policy is changing

Provision of business support services in the UK is currently going through a process of substantial

change. Government spending in many departments has been reduced, including the department

responsible for Business (BIS), as it prioritises for a reduction of the fiscal deficit. The government

flagship business support initiative, Business Link, is now mainly an online service. At regional level,

the agencies charged with economic development, including enterprise, are disappearing and their

functions subsumed into regional government authorities. In turn, regional and local government

have also seen their budgets reduced, forcing them to concentrate resources on those areas - such

as education and housing - for which they have a statutory obligation to provide. Provision of

business support is not a statutory service for government, which makes it more vulnerable to

political changes. As a consequence, enterprise support is now a casualty of the new era of

austerity in the UK.

Impact on Migrant Entrepreneurs

At this early stage it is difficult to make an assessment of the impact of the reduced status of SME

support on immigrant entrepreneurs. However, the negative impact of reduced business support

provision on immigrants is likely to be weak for a number of reasons. First, the level of penetration

of publics sector support in the SME market has always been relatively small compared to the

number of SME businesses in the UK. Survey after survey shows that the most popular sources of

information and advice for entrepreneurs are bank managers, accountants, solicitors and other

entrepreneurs. Secondly, government support has tended to focus on existing enterprises (as

distinct from aspiring entrepreneurs) and businesses and sectors offering growth potential. Many

immigrant entrepreneurs start up in business in low end retail operations leaving them outside the

scope of programmes. Thirdly, many newcomer groups and refugees in particular may be further

alienated by negative experiences at the point of entry to Britain, making them reluctant to

approach mainstream organisations such business support agencies for support.

In an attempt to make some business support more accessible to ethnic minority business, central

and local state funding had been channelled to ethnic minority organizations. However, not even

these organisations might be equipped to deal with new wave migrant entrepreneurs, as they tend


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to have a one-dimensional vision of ethnicity (Ram et al 2006), defining their function as

supporting “Asian” or “black” business, with little attention paid to special interests within these

groups – women, young people, the British-born. New migrants do not figure prominently on their

agenda.

Although pockets of good practice have emerged, dependence on short term public sector funding

have tended to make these experiences short lived.

The development of a Community Based Business Support approach in the UK was largely in

response to the failure by business support agencies to engage with aspiring and existing

entrepreneurs from ethnic minority background, including immigrants and refugees as well as

people living in deprived areas. The model’s principle of empowering communities with the

business skills to help their own entrepreneurs was also developed as an attempt to increase

reliance on communities’ own social capital thereby reducing their dependency on external

funding. Finally, the CBBS model does not prescribe a rigid solution or approach to supporting the

needs of specific communities, as it is up to its protagonists to give it shape and sustain.

4.4 IT: General data.

Public Administrations is becoming increasingly interested on encouraging foreign

entrepreneurs, their importance is remarkable both in a perspective of integration and for our

country's economy.

There are already a lot of counters (windows) in every Italian region and town, especially in

trade and labor associations dealing with integration of foreign businesses. They serve as central

office for starting up for new small businesses and foreign entrepreneurs and aim to reduce the

lack of information, creating clearness on how encourage and enable self-employed and to help

them taking advantage of the infrastructure of advices available; Also promoting dialogue between

Italian and foreign companies, as well as the chambers, associations and banks.

Many projects are financed by government designed to provide individual counseling and

group creative enterprise and small businesses, as well as seminars and information events.

Immigrants who work on their own are accompanied in their projects and, if it necessary, they are


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routed to other institutions, stakeholders and specialized experts. The exploitation of alternative

levels of relationships will help to make these offerings accessible even to those target groups

which the ordinary route institutions are not able to reach to.

Moreover, since the early 90's foreign entrepreneurs are increasingly organized in their

associations, mostly for specific nationalities. In order to give an example, we cite here the

association of Chinese entrepreneurs in Italy. Unfortunately, migrant associations are still not very

structured, there aren’t foreign communities organized and able to resort to representative

leaders who operate in their interest and make a liaison with other local actors.

In the future foreign companies will become increasingly important. Their number is going to

grow and many businesses run by immigrants is going to know a even greater modernization even

with the develop subcontracting relationships between different foreign companies and trade

relations with Italian market's participants.

However, in the short term we have to fear that in a lot of foreign companies may continue

to exist problems related to the high number of delinquencies, poor working conditions and

insufficient revenue opportunities.

In order to mitigate these problems and to promote structural change in the direction of

modernization, we should set up more service offerings for specific target group, whose main task

is to make available to foreign entrepreneurs also the many incentives offers that actually in Italy

already exists. Along with this information and mediation features, talking about employment field,

we should also focus on the area of qualification and financing.

In foreign companies, there is a high potential for political and economic needs which have

to be further encouraged.

However, there are not only the jobs they created and the amount they bring to the GDP. The

companies also provide an important contribution to the range of choice and fill gaps in

distribution, for instance in local neighborhoods.

Last but not least, according to immigrants point of view a self-guided active participation in

italian economy means a better integration in Italy. The association have not been slow to provide

specific assistance to aspiring entrepreneurs with an immigrant background.


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For example, CNA World is a service designed by Associazione Nazionale dell’Artigianato to

facilitate the social and economic integration of foreigners, enhancing their potential in different

working environments, including support in setting up a company or a self-employment.

The service allows the entrepreneurs to receive advice and assistance for the submission of

various applications according to the regulations governing employment relationships or

partnerships with foreign nationals, relieving it of long and complex administrative procedures and

bureaucratic.

Can World allows foreign citizens to achieve their business idea, supporting them throughout

the various stages: from project management to performance of bureaucracies, from searching for

funding to training. The service also allows them to comply with respect to the authorization for

legal residence and to have materials in several languages, be informed of the main Italian

legislation relating to the Company and for the proper and efficient management.

Furthermore, it’s possible to carry out various procedures for foreign nationals, including:

1. Advice and information on immigration legislation in Italy

2. Information on the various titles on immigration in Italy

3. Family reunification assistance and practical preparation

4. Assistance, compilation and presentation of the practice of citizenship

5. Assistance and information about practices outside the entrance fees of “ “Decreto Flussi”

(“flows Decree” , Art. 27.

6. Assistance and information to prepare the visa application Tourism, Business, ...

It 'a new service offered to guide, advise and accompany the foreigners in Italy, with

particular attention to the start up both of an enterprise that and self-employment. CNA World is

able to accompany and support the future entrepreneur in all bureaucratic question to start a

business activity and in addressing in legal requirements and mandatory enrollment to schools.

The aspiring entrepreneur, using the established network of CNA system, can take advantage of

advice and services on credit and finance, insurance, training, facilities and opportunities for

businesses, tax compliance. Presentation packs are also available in several languages, to inform

the foreign national about the main Italian legislation on the Company and for the proper and

efficient management. CNA world provides services to companies wishing to use foreign labor,

ensuring fairness in application of the law and regulations, relieving so complex and lengthy

administrative procedures and bureaucratic.


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CNA World is also able to give a professional answer to the needs that daily occur to the

foreign citizen in his relations with the institutions and the management of complex cases involving

social and human aspects, also delicate as family reunions or renewals of regular residence license.

An interesting initiative promoted by the Tuscany Region is represented by Migranet portal.

Migranet is an interactive website offering the aid of skilled personnel to provide foreign citizens

and operators of the information desks a widespread access to news and advice on immigration in

creating a socially responsible company even for women. Migranet is a place for sharing

information, promoting social integration of foreign nationals through the creation of a business, a

means of combating discrimination and inclusion of differences.

Besides the problems that are typical of Italian companies, such as the lack of

professional and commercial knowledge, poor allocation of capital, inadequate market's

analysis and distribution, as well as the weaknesses in marketing and

customer acquisition, working immigrants also meet their own specific problems. Certainly such

difficulties comes from a linguistic/ cultural matter, or are due to the particular corporate

structures of companies run by immigrants.

The main problems of self-employed migrant, identified by BA professionals can be summarized as

follows:

- Due to the small size of company structures and shortly modern business management ,

frequently productivity is poor;

- Firms often operate in economically unattractive area for the Italian companies. This, combined

with low productivity, in many cases produce poor working conditions, with extremely long

working hours and low wages.

- There is a lack of qualified personnel. Basically no business training is carried out. This matter

leads to quality problems and hamper the economic outlook;

- Several foreign companies have funding issues. Largely entrepreneurs have insufficient

information about the claim of government incentive.

The Italian banks are even more restrictive in lending to such companies than towards the

Italians, because they are uncertain about how to evaluate their credit requests;

- Foreign companies are not sufficiently informed about the possibilities of advice and

encouragement offered by Italian authorities and, therefore, practically don't use its services;


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- Reserves and prejudices against Italian bureaucracy often hinder the establishment of contacts

with government offices, which complicates the problem resolutions;

- The availability of foreign companies to join and work actively in professional associations is very

poor, so they don’t benefit from their offers of assistance;

- Many immigrants choose self-employment for lack of prospects in the labor market, so new

problems arise. Many of these people are unemployed or at risk of unemployment so they need

more assistance in business start-up, because they come from completely different sectors and

often previously were simple laborers. This group should be prepared for self-employment through

training opportunities and advice;

- Investors from the countries of origin of immigrants show great interest in investing in Italy.

Many of these small and medium size companies are unable to realize their potential, cause

they often don’t know the existing facilities in Italy. On whole, these factors mean that the share of

insolvency of foreign companies is higher than the Italian companies. However, there are no

detailed figures about it. The willingness to take risks and courage that occur in many foreign

contractors are not enough to act in an entrepreneurial manner. Often they resort to private and

family support, but it cannot replace the expert assistance of a professional business advisor. Many

immigrants with entrepreneurial activity don’t realistically assess their information needs, they

don’t fully understand their need of a comprehensive advice. Since in their country of origin the

offers of institutional advisory are not available or are associated with high costs, the use of such

services is not taken into account. Multipliers (social consultants, teachers, associations, etc.) that

are in contact with immigrants have often just a little knowledge about offers of assistance

available for businesses. This is very serious because the multipliers have high esteem in immigrant

communities and their recommendations are generally accepted. Generally, even the detailed

advice of tax advisers isn’t able to compensate the existing deficits.

Most of the company founders, however, belongs to the large group that has rather large lack of

information. This necessarily entails a number of insolvencies or even premature withdrawal to sell

the business.

Obviously, these problems do not affect all foreign entrepreneurs. A relatively small

proportion is well informed and makes use of the available consultancy services.


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4.5 PL: General data

The research on business advise entities oriented towards immigrants in Poland within the

“BestForm” project was conducted in March and April 2011. In total 21 representatives of

institutions dealing with immigrants were interviewed. The research was divided into two stages:

- 1st stage (between 08.03.2011 - 25.03.2011):

Information on the project and questionnaires in English and Polish to be filled in by business

advisors were distributed by e-mail among 223 stakeholders (profit and non-profit entities

oriented towards immigrants, NGOs, charities, research institutions, public job centres,

offices for foreigners, etc.). However, very weak feedback to questionnaires was observed. It

seems it might be a consequence of general lack of specific entities directly aimed at

business counseling for immigrants.

- 2nd stage (between 25.03.2011 - 8.04.2011):

Since only 4 completed questionnaires were collected, potential stakeholders were visited at

their premises and/or interviewed by telephone in order to conduct qualitative research on

services for immigrant entrepreneurs. As a result, in total 2 face-to-face interviews and 15

telephone interviews were carried out.

As majority of collected interviews were conducted using qualitative research methods the

below data analysis will mainly focus on qualitative aspects of the examined problem.

The conducted quantitative and, primarily, qualitative research has revealed there are no

specific counselling centres oriented towards prospective foreign entrepreneurs in Poland. As

mentioned before, it might be the reason for low interest among representatives’ of interviewed

entities in taking part in the “BestForm” research. Nonetheless, basing on the prior desktop

research and the conducted interviews we can differentiate three major groups of entities dealing

with immigrants.

The first and the most numerous group consists of various not-for-profit institutions, such

as: NGOs, foundations, charities and cultural centres. Usually they employ few people with no

strict division of responsibilities. Interestingly, in many cases the entities’ daily activities are

assisted by volunteers recruited from students interested in intercultural issues. In total there

were 10 representatives of institutions of this kind interviewed. Most of their activities concern

support in legalization of foreigners’ residence permissions or work permissions.


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They rarely help immigrants in finding a first or a new job. From time to time

representatives’ of the interviewed entities also act as an intermediary or translator/interpreter

between immigrant and representatives of public administration and financial institutions (i.e.

offices for foreigners, job centres, banks or social security institutions, when it comes to apply for a

job, take a loan or pay taxes). On the other hand, they are also focused on various cultural

activities promoting foreign cultural heritages in Poland as well as cross-cultural relations

consultancy. Thus, services for immigrant entrepreneurs play an extremely marginal role in their

daily activities as very little interest in business advise among foreigners is observed.

All examined non-for-profit entities were located in Warsaw since the capital city is the

most popular immigrant destination in Poland. The entities are mostly run by Polish nationals

and/or foreigners who have experience of few years’ residence in Poland. Their activities are

financed by the state, Warsaw city or EU funds (primarily European Social Fund, European Fund for

Integration of the Third-Country Nationals and – to a lesser extent – Lifelong Learning Programme).

Since the provided services are free of charge their services are mainly oriented towards newly

arrived immigrant workers or other foreigners who cannot afford to pay for consultancy services.

Thus, their clients are mainly from traditional sending countries of the former USSR (Ukraine,

Belarus, Russia), Asia, Arabic countries and Africa. What needs to be emphasized, in case of entities

run by Polish nationals the services are offered to immigrants irrespective of their ethnicity or

citizenship, whereas the entities run by non-Poles are usually oriented towards their compatriots

due to existing language barriers.

The second group of institutions oriented towards immigrants comprises of private for-

profit entities, like law firms and – to a lesser extent – trade chambers, counselling centres and

training centres. Similarily to the above described non-for-profit institutions these are micro

enterprises that employ up to few people, predominantly legal experts. There were 7 entities of

this kind examined within the “BestForm” qualitative research. Another 3 interviews were

conducted with self-employed university experts who offer services in legal and cross-cultural

consultancy. Contrary to non-for-profit institutions, the examined for-profit entities are also

located in other popular immigrant destination cities in Poland (Lodz, Krakow, Wroclaw, Poznan,

Lublin).


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Similarly, they mainly focus on support in legalization of residence/work permits. Very

rarely they are asked to help for a legal advice in business matters (or job search) as usually their

clients are already employed or run enterprises on their own. Interestingly, few interviewed

entities also offer relocation services for foreigners (both legal and logistic support in moving to

Poland, looking for apartment/house, looking for kindergarten etc.). Since every provided service

is charged the clients are mainly highly educated specialists and representatives of foreign

multinational corporations from Western countries (EU member states) who came to Poland for

specific fixed-time work contracts. If the relocation services or support in legalization of their

residence is not provided by their employer they look for help at these entities.

The third group comprises of public institutions, i.e. regional and central offices for

foreigners, job centres and academic research units. One representative of job centre was

interviewed for the purpose of the research. As these entities’ main responsibilities are limited to

legalization of foreigners’ residence and work, their employees are not obliged to provide any

other type of advice. However, officers usually support immigrants in finding other (for-profit or

non-for-profit) entities that offer specific services important for foreigners’ further stay in Poland.

To sum up, the results of conducted desktop and field research prove there are no

specialized counseling entities that would offer business advice for foreign nationals in Poland. The

existing institutions oriented towards immigrants are not interested in provision of business

consulting as the demand for this type of services among foreigners is very limited.

4.6 RO: General data.

At national level, Romanian citizens and immigrants who want to develop own business

activities can take advices and information from different kinds of entities: institutions, public and

private entities, NGOs and associations. Below we rendered the most important of these entities

and the kind of services they provide to the customers.

(a) Institutions and public entities

ARIS: Romanian Agency for Foreign Investment

This organization works under the coordination of the Romanian Ministry of Economy, Trade

and Business Environment. Its mission is to promote the trade on international, regional and

national level by giving key information about the business opportunities in Romania.


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ORI: Romanian Office for Immigration

It is a specialized body of the central public administration, subordinated to the Ministry of

Administration and Interior. Its matter concerns the release of documents certifying the right of

employment of foreigners on the Romanian territory. ORI exercises its powers through the

implementation of Romania's policies in the areas of migration, asylum, integration of foreigners

and the relevant legislation in these areas. Its institutional activity is to provide public services; it is

conducted in the interest of the community and in the view of supporting the state institutions,

based solely on law enforcement. It manages the issue of migration, asylum and social integration

of foreigners in Romania. The establishment of a single institution and a unit on immigration

legislation, including foreigners and asylum is an undeniable advantage, an unitary vision upon the

phenomenon, providing better coordinated procedures, reducing red tape generated and, the

most important, offering a rational use of financial funds, human resources and materials. To

answer the best way to this demand, the Office has been structured at central and regional levels:

it is composed of divisions, services and other functional and geographical structures (centers,

services, etc.); Moreover, it is urgent to increase the capacity to ensure adequate management

conditions of migration because Romania is becoming more and more a target country for

immigrants43.

Embassies and consulates

These public entities are the legal representatives of the foreign countries abroad. Immigrants

and also Romanian citizens can get information from them. They provide different type of services

such as cooperation and assistance, help to expatriate people concerning administrative issues

through the consular section.

These entities also subordinate other important service: the Economic Mission. One of its aims

is the public counseling for international development of companies: exportations, foreign

investment and participation to projects.

CCI: Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR) is the most powerful business

association in Romania, bringing together its entire network among which one can count the 42

county Chambers of Commerce and Industry, bilateral chambers of commerce and professional

43

http://ori.mai.gov.ro/, March 2011

http://ori.mai.gov.ro/


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associations. The CCIR is an organization which supports community and business interests,

particularly those of its members in dialogue with government and international bodies. The

Chamber works to create a stable and consistent business environment, conducing to the

development of the private sector, a real market economy, sustainable and open outwards. As a

representative of business sector, CCIR includes in its service the organization of trade missions,

vocational training programs, business events, seminars and debates, database administration with

business opportunities.

CCIFER: French Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in Romania

Founded in 1996, CCIF works as a bilateral chamber, and has currently around 300 member

companies, 60% of which are small and medium enterprises. At the same time, the CCIF brings the

big names of French investment in Romania such as Renault Dacia, Orange, Alcatel, BRD - Group

Societe Generale, Veolia, Michelin, Lafarge, etc. Located in the heart of Bucharest, CCIFER provides

a lot of services to help French entities to develop their activity in Romania: business incubator

(help starting a business in Romania), business support (information, advice, research of

partnership, councilors to offers a full range of services), continuing education (courses,

professional trainings, different tools to help people developing their human capital in

management, culture, personal abilities, commercial support)44.

(b) Associations

CIS: Information Center for Foreigners, Pitesti – Human Solidarity Association

The Human Solidarity Association is located in Piteşti - Argeş region and it works as a partner

in the project “Management and solidarity of migratory flows” (developed by OIM and European

funds as we previously mentioned). This association provides the help and information to

immigrants, such as information about their rights on the Romanian territory: right to have a job, a

flat, right to health care, welfare and social security, to education, etc. Its aim is to facilitate the

access of immigrants to non-discriminatory services and public goods. The specific ethic of this

association is growing human solidarity and development, the discovery, training and promotion of

human values. By press releases, Human Solidarity Association wants to make known the activites

launched by its Information Center for Foreigners and its willingness to cooperate in solving

44

http://www.ccifer.ro , March 2011.

http://www.ccifer.ro/


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problems that foreigners with legal residence may face on Romanian territory45

The French Alliance of Pitesti46

This association - which exists since 1990, is the first of its type created in Romania after the

revolution in 1989. Its main aim is to diffuse French language but it is also aimed to improve the

communication, information and knowledge between the two countries - Romania and France. To

give an example, immigrants can take classes of Romanian languages there, find network of

immigrants in the same situation receive advice, etc.

(c) Private entities

Enescu and Cuc, “oriented towards foreign investors”

Located in Bucharest, this law firm offers legal consultancy and representation on issues of

commercial, civil and business law, in an ethical and professional manner. “Enescu and Cuc”

provides assistance in company incorporation/registration in Romania, in matters like official

registration structure, financing, taxation, office registration.

Other examples could be: Romanian Commercial Bank (BCR), Business Intelligence (Advisor

Company), Ţarălungă and Ţarălungă law office, The Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of

Romania (CECCAR), Total Consult (one of the first Romanian business advice companies), etc. All

these private entities provide services dedicated to foreigners who want to establish in Romania

and to to open a business activity.

4.7 DE: General data.

In Germany a high number of organizations at local, regional and national level can be found

that provide advice and consultancy for immigrants aiming at setting up their own-business.

Business advice at national level is provided by the German Ministry of Economics. The

Business start up portal “Existenzgründer” provides a comprehensive overview on the topic in

general and specific advice for migrants from the EU and from outside. Links to regional and local

organisations are provided.

At national level we find also the Chambre of Commerce in Germany (abr. IHK) that provides

45

Human Solidarity Association, Information Center for Foreigners (CIS), Piteşti 46

http://www.afpitesti.org/index.php?pagina=40, March 2011

http://www.afpitesti.org/index.php?pagina=40


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support at national and local level. The Chambre of Commerce has a dependency in every major

German city. Coordination of major activities takes place at national level, while the

operationalization takes place at local level. In 2007, 8282 Migrants sought advice at the IHK -

equivalent to a share of 14 percent of all persons visiting the the Chambre business start-up for

consultancy activities47

Besides this two major organisations at national level, business start-up advice takes place

though multiple organisations at local and regional level. Many of them are especially dedicated to

migrants and business start up, some are from immigrant entrepreneurs for migrant start-ups.

Additionally some organisations are focusing only on immigrant women or on a certain nationality.

In general the topic is already well addressed in Germany, although a community based

approach to the topic as foreseen in BestForm is not yet existent in Germany, although some

experts explicitly point out the necessity to support immigrants willing to set-up and maintain a

business within their communities.

4.8 Conclusions.

From the above mentioned information there are some general conclusions to highlight:

- There are some countries like Portugal, Spain or Italy where the national integration

policies are more favorable for immigrant entrepreneurs. Whereas, in other countries like

Romania or Poland, still there are no official law, rules or policies in this field.

- There is a positive evolution of the public/private advice services oriented to immigrant

entrepreneurs. In Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany exists national programmes/project

linked to this field and therefore, national institutions apart from private ones which work

advising immigrants who want to become entrepreneurs. However, the current

economical crisis is affecting this positive trend and in UK, for example, as provision of

business support is not a statutory service for government, makes it more vulnerable and

in consequence, enterprise support is now living an austerity phase.

47 Evers, M. [2008] IHK Gründerreport, Deutscher Industrie- und Handelskammertag Bereich Wirtschaftspolitik,

Mittelstand, Innovation – Berlin.


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- Foreign entrepreneurs are increasingly organized in their associations, mostly for specific

nationalities.

- In general, the entities which provide advice services oriented to immigrants can be

classified into three categories:

1. Public entities linked to the government (including trade unions): (PT: ACIDI, CNAI, CLAII,

GAE, RGI; ES: Spanish Labour and Immigration Ministry, UK: BIS, DE: German Ministry of

Economics, etc.

2. Associations, Forundations, NGOS: (ES: ATA; IT: CNA World; RO: CIS: Information Center

for Foreigners, Pitesti – Human Solidarity Association etc)

3. Private entities: (RO: Enescu and Cuc, “oriented towards foreign investors, etc.

- The Community based business support has no presence in project countries with the

exception of UK. In the rest project countries this is a new idea could help and complete the

offer of entities which work in this field.


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5. Business advisers’ profile

5.1 PT: General data

This section will examine in detail the results of the implemented survey (i.e. questionnaire and

interviews) among business advisors in Portugal with regard to immigrant entrepreneurship. A

total of 15 questionnaires were completed and 5 interviews were conducted.

5.1.1. Characteristics of respondents – business advisers’ background

The respondents tend to represent various different kinds of organizations within business advice

for immigrants, including organizations such as institutions for professional integration, various

consultancies with regard to entrepreneurship and immigrants, individuals subjected to social and

labor market exclusion.

The age of the business advisors range between 28 as the youngest and 51 as the oldest, with the

majority of them being in their thirties and forties. Only 5 out of 20 were men of the business

advisors, and only one being unemployed at the moment.

All of the respondents tend to be well-educated as they all have a degree within higher education.

The respondents’ main function are (please note the list is not exhaustive):

- Support for translation (language issues);

- Social support;

- Technical support;

- Ad hoc tasks within the organization (business advice in general);

- Management and accompanied;

- Development of individual competences to increase employment;

- Technical support: micro finance, support to the development of SMEs, integration of

immigrants;

- Professor;

- Trainer.


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5.1.2. Characteristics of respondents’ work

As the business advisors work in quite different organizations, their position, professional

experience and responsibilities also tend to differ quite a lot.

However, some of the respondents do not perform such work in a specific organization, but on a

project. For instance one of the interviewee is the manager on a project that has developed a

migrant support center for immigrants, who wish to start up their own business in their country of

origin (in this case it is mainly directed towards Cape Verdean immigrants).

The project provides practical information on the main steps and procedures towards the creation

of a new business in Cape Vert. Some of the staff’s main activities are to guide the potential

entrepreneurs towards the right organizations (technical, legal etc. organization), and further to

explain the individual (in a simplified language) the necessary procedures to create a new business.

Another example of that was the case of one of the respondents. He is self-employed as an

entrepreneurial trainer, coordinating a project which provides business support in the field of

entrepreneurship from a practical rather theoretical perspective. In addition, he is also engaged in

a practical community for trainers, researchers and experts within entrepreneurship, which aims to

develop personal potential.

Other respondents are managers or worked on projects/initiatives with regard to immigrants and

entrepreneurship. Most of them have in common the fact that all of these initiatives tend to be

funded from public sources.

However, the majority of the respondents tended to be employees in organizations engaged within

the area of immigration and entrepreneurship. The work of the business advisors for immigrants

with regard to entrepreneurship can roughly be divided into three main areas:

- Support for jobseekers/unemployed regarding entrepreneurship;

- Providing training for professional development/entrepreneurial competences;

- General support for immigrants towards entrepreneurship.

The diversity of the work responsibilities within business advice is clearly shown, as some of the


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respondents manage perhaps all three categories, while others are perhaps more profoundly

engaged in the one or two of the categories. The business advisors need a range of competences to

be able to manage such different tasks.

5.1.3. Identified barriers affecting client groups

All the respondents agreed upon that it is difficult for potential immigrants to become

entrepreneurs and often they tend to give up, before even getting started due to certain barriers.

Although the barriers can be highly individual, based on the background and experience of the

person, the respondents identified several common barriers to all potential immigrant

entrepreneurs.

The main barrier identified by the respondents is the difficulty in understanding the legal

questions, which do make sense as the Portuguese legal system tended (now initiatives to improve

this are being implemented) to be very complex. In this context, business advisors help potential

entrepreneurs to understand the administrative and legal rules of startup business. However, the

inquired people and the interviewee agreed that to start up a business and become an

entrepreneur is very difficult in the Portuguese context.

Another main barrier is the difficulty in understanding the financial aspects and in obtaining credit

access. Among these can be included the following initiatives: making a loan application for the

bank, understanding how much investment/resources are needed to start up a particular business;

understanding microfinance issues, etc. Another barrier, which perhaps has a connection to the

first two is accountancy, also this tends to be an issue.

Other identified barriers are language, ICT, marketing, management of clients (personal

interaction) and sales including technical sales.


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5.1.4. Identified knowledge gaps among immigrants

The business advisers interviewed or inquired indentified the following knowledge gaps:

Table 9: Skill gaps among immigrant entrepreneurs

Source: SPI.

5.1.5. Necessary skills and competences as business advisor

The respondents identified a variety of competences needed in order to be a successful business

advisor for immigrants in general and with regard to entrepreneurship. Interpersonal skills are

needed, when you are a business advisor, as the whole foundation of the work is based on

interactions with other people. The business advisors also recognize the ability of being flexible

and creative as an essential skill, as well as the ability of being open-minded but possessing critical

and analyzing skills. Also, another important competence identified by the business advisors is to

provide motivational support, stimulating the entrepreneur to ‘creating something’ and boosting

the entrepreneurs´ individual confidence to actually turn the idea into a business.

One of the respondents also mentioned that good communication skills (including listening and

motivate) to interact with the immigrant is also vital. Several of the respondents noted that the

area of entrepreneurship is constantly subjected to changes, thus being important that the

business advisor gets up to date with the latest developments, locally and nationally, in order to be


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prepared to provide the best counseling possible.

The immigrants living in Portugal often come from very poor conditions and have often had a

relatively hard life, thus it is important for the business advisors to possess empathy and to have

knowledge of working with problematic and socially excluded groups.

With regard to ‘hard skills’, the most referred as essential for a business adviser are technical

competences such as legal and financial knowledge, including microfinance. The hard skills also

include operational abilities related to business setup, such as elaboration of business plans and

bureaucratic and administrative requirements for starting up a business.

5.2 ES: General data

This section contains the results coming from the survey developed among business advisors

in Spain with regards to immigrant entrepreneurship. In total, 20 people were contacted. They

fulfilled the questionnaire by phone and in some cases by e-mail.


The respondents work in different organizations: trade unions, workers unions, associations

and nonprofit association working with immigrants. The following figure shows the distribution:

Figure 11. Source: Survey made by INVESLAN. Own elaboration

Concerning their profile, the following table summarizes the main data provided about their

profile:



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Table 10: Profile of respondents_ES

Source: survey made by INVESLAN. Own elaboration

There were interviewed more women than men (11 women and 9 men). The majority are in

their thirties and forties. 70% are business advisors in associations and trade unions, 20% experts

in the field of business advice and only 10%, work as advisor in immigrant communities, in this

case, within the Bulgarian community. All are currently working and the average in the position is

higher in the case of men (6.5 years) than in the case of women, 5.9 years. 2 of respondents are

not Spanish.

Educational background of people interviewed is in all cases very positive as they all have a

degree within higher education: i.e master degree.


The majority of respondents are general advisers in the field of entrepreneurship (90%) or

technicians (in the field of employment, 10%) in trade unions, nonprofit organizations, associations

and workers unions. Their main tasks are (please note the list is not exhaustive):

- General and direct consultancy with clients concerning: administrative aspects, legal

matters, development of the business idea….

- General guidance.

- Development of different procedures: i.e name of business and their opening.

- Analysis of the projects´ feasibility and development of business plans.

- Identification of training needs among clients.

- Search of funding resources, programs, aids.

- Diagnosis of the situation of an already developed business.


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The types of clients who work with are: unemployed people or people that will be

unemployed soon and those who that want to create another business (this is more often in the

case of national entrepreneurs).

Regarding their nationality, among foreign people, they advice immigrants from South

America (Ecuador, Bolivia, Perú); from Eastern Countries (Bulgaria, Romania); from Africa

(Morocco). The profile of their clients differs in each case but in general they have medium-high

educational level, with problems to obtain the recognition of their studies and therefore, to access

to a labour market.

Among the services they provide there are: general consultancy; in some cases they offer

workshops for entrepreneurs: marketing, self-employment; they help entrepreneurs to search the

venue of their businesses, management of small loans; their monitor the business the first year

and they sign agreements with banks for loans.

Matters in which they advice

Figure 15: Matters in which they advice

Source: Survey made by INVESLAN. Own elaboration

Why they work in this field? 35% of respondents think this job is interesting and motivating

as they can help other people. They also consider it as very dynamic field, less monotonous than

others, in where they can develop multifunctional tasks.

5.2.3. Identified barriers affecting client groups and identified knowledge gaps among

immigrants

Although the situation differs in each case, the main barriers indentified by respondents are:



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- Access to financial resources

- Legal situation

- Knowledge gap

- Language

- Insecurity

Figure 16: Main barriers identified

Source: Survey made by INVESLAN. Own elaboration

- Access to financial resources: Taking into account the current economic crisis, there are less

opportunities to access to loans. This is the main barrier identified and the most important

concern among immigrants.

- Legal situation: Some respondents mentioned this barrier. They explained that in some

cases, immigrants want to become entrepreneurs without any business idea just to obtain a

legal situation in Spain.

- Knowledge gap: the majority of immigrants who work with don’t have a clear idea about

the different aspects that cover to be an entrepreneur. (40% of respondents agreed on this

statement) This differs in each case. In some cases the knowledge they have is partial and

they need more support, including training through courses, and in other cases the

knowledge gap is more specific and can be solved by individualize advice and monitoring.

- Other identified barriers are language and insecurity feels.

Finally, 45% of respondents consider that advice given to immigrant entrepreneurs is more

personal, close, individualize, and more specific: matter oriented: licenses…


The respondents identified different type of competences needed in order to be a successful

business advisor. These competences were classified into 3 main groups:

- Social and interpersonal skills: (90% of respondents). This is the main group of

competences identified by almost all respondents. In their opinion these skills are

inherent to any business advisor and essential in order to guarantee a success advice

service to clients. The communication and the interaction with clients are core fields

in business advisement. The business advisor need to be self confidence, have

empathy, responsibility and communications skills: verbal and non verbal skills.



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- Professional competences: 60% of respondents considered these competences

important in a business advisor career. Advisors need to have specific knowledge in

the field they advice: marketing, finance, legal matters…and also keep updated with

the latest developments and changing affecting immigrant situation.

- Organizational competences/skills: (20% of respondents). A successful business

advisor should know how to manage the time and how to organize different tasks in

order to optimize his/her work.

In opinion of 90% of respondents, they already have the above mentioned competences, and

only 2, consider they should improve some: like communication skills and knowledge skills. In daily

work, 75% of respondents use more social skills, followed by professional (knowledge)

competences (45%) and organizational skills (10%). All have interest in receiving training to

enhance some of their skills/competences.

5.3 UK: General data

A survey of UK business advisers, based on the questionnaire developed by Best Form for this

purpose, was carried out in the early part of 2011. ACBBA sent the questionnaire via email to

people known to be working in business support or with recent experience of providing assistance

to ethnic minority entrepreneurs. The profile here reported is based o twenty responses.

5.3.1 Respondents Personal Background

Current working position - Most respondents (50%) work in Support Organisations offering

not just business support but a wider range of services, including welfare advice, advocacy

and basic skills training. Four respondents (20%) work in specialist Business Support

Organisations, three (15%) operate as independent business consultants and three (15%)

used to work as business advisers assisting ethnic minority entrepreneurs but now work in

a different role.

Gender – The male/female split in the sample is fairly even, 11 respondents (55%) are male

and 9 (45%) are women.


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Age – Most respondents are mature professionals; 11 (or 55%) are in the 35-49 years of

age and five (25%) are over 50 years of age. A further four (20%) respondents are less than

35 years of age.

Education – The vast majority of respondents (85%), hold university degrees; twelve (60%)

hold post graduate qualifications and five (25%) are graduates. Three respondents hold

higher education qualifications.


Main Client Groups – It is not possible, with the information gathered, to make a

quantitative assessment of respondents’ main client groups. Nevertheless, it is clear that

most respondents work (or used to work) with disadvantaged groups, of which people

from ethnic minority communities and women figure prominently. Other clients from

disadvantaged groups include the unemployed, refugees, lone parents and ex-offenders.

Small and medium sized enterprises are also another important category of clients, which

includes start ups or fairly young businesses. A closer look at the responses suggests only a

small number of advisers in the sample work with established, growing businesses.

Main Services Provided – Responses were grouped into four categories - Information &

Advice; Training; Mentoring and Networking. Information & Advice is by far the main

service provided by business advisers.


immigrants

Clients’ Most Frequent Support Needs – Marketing related issues, including marketing

planning, selling and attracting and maintaining clients, are the most frequent type of

support needs. The next most frequent type of support needs is Financial, which includes

access to capital and financial management.

Main Barriers to Starting Up and Growing – The main barriers to starting up and growing

mentioned by respondents. Financial related issues, such as lack of capital or under-

capitalisation is the most frequently mentioned barrier. Poor or inadequate relevant

knowledge on the part of entrepreneurs is the second most frequently mentioned barrier.


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From the respondents’ perspective, a narrow understanding of the market place is also an

important limitation. Some advisers also mentioned the ‘welfare benefits trap’ as a major

limitation for some unemployed clients, who fear they might end up in a worse off position

if they leave the benefits system and become self employed.


Main Competencies Needed – Responses were grouped into the categories shown in the

graph below. Personal skills, including Empathy/Motivational, Advisory and

Communication skills were the most frequently mentioned, suggesting that whilst business

knowledge and experience are essential, business advisers need to be skilful in developing

rapport, managing relationships and imparting knowledge.

Keeping Up-to-date and Maintaining Standards – Attending courses is an important form

of keeping up to date and acquiring new knowledge for respondents. However, the

responses also suggest that individual activities such as reading printed and online

information, seeking advice from peers and practicing as business advisers are even more

critical to maintaining professional standards.

Motivation to Become Business Adviser – Helping people was clearly the most frequent

response in the survey, suggesting a strong serving vocation amongst respondents. Having

relevant experience or interest, for example in running a business, was also mentioned

frequently.

5.4 IT: General data.

5.4.1 Respondents Personal Background

Despite the very different level of business advice provided in different institutions, the

principles of business advisors work are very similar. Variations were identified only concerning

the preferences of what the advisor should focus on and what knowledge/skills s/he should

acquire or improve. The differences in preferences may be caused by the range and level of

experience of individual advisors in working with a target group or by the standard of state

support for advisory services. The profiles, approaches and roles are almost the same.


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Most of business advisors interviewed during the research show similar profiles, aged

between 29 and 45 years, equally gender distributed and with a similar educational background.

Concerning educational background most of them have a degree in Economics, Law or Politic

Sciences, with specialization in a specific field of advice (administrative, financial, legal…).


All the interviewed recognize some minimum standard knowledge necessary to be a

business advice professional.

The consultant must be an expert in administrative law, banking, finance and tax, business,

labor and trade union. He must also have knowledge of macroeconomics, microeconomics,

accounting and business management. Finally, he must also be an expert in online contracts. It is

considered necessary knowledge of English, especially in the legal-economic development.

The decision to become a business advisor take his main reason in the satisfaction of helping

business owners identify alternate solutions to common problems and leading people to success. A

new entrepreneur doesn’t know how difficult the start-up phase can be, especially when a small

business founder has no access to outside advisors or is too independent to take their advice.

Business advice towards immigrant entrepreneurs shows similar aspects especially regarding

the main barriers to be challenged by the clients and about the lack of information or confidence

in the services provided.


immigrants

The respondent identified four main categories regarding the problem encountered by

immigrant entrepreneurs: legal matters, financial issues, access to credit and lack of the technical

language domain.


A business advisor to support properly this disadvantageous category in addition to standard

technical knowledge have to possess some “soft skills” identified as indispensable to win the trust

and respect of the target.

BA’s have to be sensitive to the needs of the target groups and create an open atmosphere.

It’s considered indispensable to empathies with clients and to understand their situations enabling

the success in the entrepreneurial process.


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The BA’s general approach is to improve the ability of clients to survive and thrive and

transmit to the entrepreneurs that they are individuals that often fail, but the best people to know

what they need.

BA’s towards migrant entrepreneurs have a mixture of professional qualifications as

economical advisor and social empathy with the client coming from an excluded community, they

need high levels of culturally specific knowledge, and language skills cause a proper

communication has a direct impact on the successful cooperation with clients.

It's also important to have a good network of business contacts in consulting as you

progress. New business development becomes part of your job. As your classmates rise in their

respective business areas it is important to stay in touch with them as they may become your

future customers.

All the business advisors concerned explicitly recognize the importance of communication

and interpersonal skills and the ability to build a relationship with the client for the provision of

successful and quality advisory services respecting the particularities of the client target group.

Interviewed business advisors consider the following approaches essential in the professional

practice of the BA. They are some of the characteristics every BA should have and are those

characteristics, which enable a BA to make a difference. Therefore, depending on personal

background of aspirant migrant entrepreneur is possible to identify common gaps indentified by

interviewed advisor.

Figure 17: Skills and competences self assessment

Source: Survey made by Oxfam. Own elaboration



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The survey shows two different categories in the training needs identification, on one hand

“knowledge skills”, on the other hand “social skills”.

The category of “knowledge“ includes everything that can be described as professional

competence and can be documented through education, studies or other training. Methodology

knowledge refers to knowledge and understanding of ways of learning and the motivations of

potential entrepreneurs/business starters. Business advisors are required to have the competence

to stimulate learning and to structure work processes. As many people seeking to start a business

need external financing it is important for business advisors to have knowledge and understanding

on accessing capital and/or to have direct access to microfinance sources. All the BA’s agreed that

business advisors need to be skilled in economics and have general knowledge in business law,

taxes and marketing.

In addition, it is necessary for business advisors to have ICT knowledge, access to

comprehensive start-up information and networking skills.

Some business advisors mention “project management” skills: ability to structure complex

plans, to set targets and to stick to and continuously follow these targets. Therefore analytical

skills refer to the ability to assess the other person’s character and to provide substantiated

feedback about the success of the individual plans. To guide someone in the process of drawing up

the business plan, it is necessary to know about the specific requirements of such a planning

instrument. In addition, advisors need experience and a well-grounded view for typical customer

in this process. Therefore some business advisors recognize pedagogical skills as the skills to

transfer other knowledge to the client entrepreneur/ business starter.

The category of “social skills“ refers to “soft skills“, that is skills that are based more on

personal characteristics and experience than on specific qualifications.

Regarding the “social skills”, advisors need to be able to motivate the clients by acting with

pro activeness, has to be open towards the ideas of his/her clients and give even unconventional

ideas a fair chance.

Advisors should exude confidence to encourage clients in developing their business idea. On

the other hand, advisors need to be capable of giving honest feedback, if after a profound analysis

they come to the conclusion that an idea is not feasible. The advice has to be oriented towards the

individual needs and circumstances of the clients and the advisor should adjust his/her techniques

and services to the particular development stage of the customer.


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Taking all the factors described above into consideration, it may be concluded that the main

training needs to become a Business Advisors are as follows:

• To discover and analyze business ideas and opportunities in the region

• To promote the entrepreneurial spirit and to encourage potential entrepreneurs

• To inform potential entrepreneurs about the different resources and financial support in

the region

• To inform them about the different organizations in the region that offer support to

entrepreneurs

• To guide them as they take their first steps and point them in the right direction

• Indirectly, to create added value in local areas

Common needs among migrant entrepreneurs

Successful Business Advisors Knowledge Training needs

Information about legal framework of business

Knowledge of the current economic situation and individual markets

Updating in legal issues related to immigrants

Ability to process a business plan

Knowledge of the methods and approaches of compiling the Business Plan Business analysis

Creation of networking

Ability to link clients effectively to the society and gain access to mainstream services Networking

More opportunities to raise finance

Knowledge of information resources especially in the area of financial support Funding and resources

Increase trust between the beneficiaries and the business advisor

Ability to set-up an embedded relationship

Communication and Interpersonal Skills

Increase self-confidence for self-employment

Facilitate self-employment opportunities Soft skills

Linguistic and intercultural barriers High level of culturally specific knowledge and language skills Intercultural dimension

Table 11: Common needs, knowledge and training needs of Italian interviewed BAs

Source: Survey made by Oxfam. Own elaboration



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5.5 PL: General data


Despite representing various types of entities oriented towards immigrants, the 21

interviewees are characterized by similar socio-demographic features. Only 2 of them are non-

Polish nationals (Ukrainians) – both working for NGOs that were established in order to help

foreigners from the former USSR countries to adapt to Polish legal and cultural context. The

interviewed representatives are also relatively well educated as all of them has already finished

studies or has been studying at the moment of conducting interviews. What is more, most of the

respondents are also active on labour market since they worked or volunteered in the examined

institutions. On average they were for 3 years in their positions.

As it was mentioned, due to lack of demand for business consulting among foreigners in

Poland, there are no specific entities offering such services for prospective immigrant

entrepreneurs. One of the interviewed employees of a law firm confirms that “clients that come to

our office and ask what to do to start a company are very rare. I would even say that they may

account for not more than 2-3% of our all clients. Of course, from time to time someone comes and

asks about these issues, for example how to get a loan in a bank or where to get EU funds, but this

is not the place they will get satisfactory advice. We just do not deal with these issues. We know

how to help them if they want to prolong a work permit or even register a company in a court but

nothing more...”

As a result, none of the respondents works strictly as a business advisor. Furthermore, there

are no specified employees responsible for these area of consultancy in the examined institutions.

Thus among the interviewees we could distinguish the following positions:

- 5 project managers responsible for fundraising and carrying out several projects in non-for-

profit entities (including 2 non-Polish nationals),

- 5 regular employees and volunteers in non-for-profit entities,

- 4 owners of private for-profit entities (mainly law firms),

- 3 regular employees of for-profit entities (mainly law firms),

- 3 academic teachers (university experts) in intercultural dialogue and business advice,

- 1 officer in job centre.


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The interviewees representing non-profit entities, that offer free of charge services for

migrants mainly from the East and South (the former USSR countries, Asia and Africa), are

generally responsible for supporting foreigners in legalization/extending residence and work

permits. Therefore, their usual duties are focused on offering various legal advice, support in filling

official documents in, as well as interpreting/translating in public offices or job centres. As part of

entities deal with promotion of foreign cultures, they also organize various cultural events

(festivals, seminars, discussions, etc.) and offer cross-cultural advice to both immigrants and Polish

nationals. Finally, they seldom support foreigners in establishing companies, particularly in filling

required documents, interpreting in public offices or during business negotiations, as well as

supporting in accountancy.

On the other hand, the employees of the examined private for-profit institutions, that offer

paid services for migrants from the EU countries and other developed countries, also work

primarily as legal advisors. Similarly their support is usually limited to extending work/residence

permits. However, since few entities are law firms they also offer broader legal advice. Despite the

fact they are not expressly qualified in business matters they can advice not only how to fill official

documents in, but also how to establish and register a new enterprise or what legal requirements

need to be fulfilled in order to hire foreign workers by Polish/foreign employers. Otherwise, they

usually suggest other institutions (like regional Centres for Advancement of Entrepreneurship or

regional job centres) that might provide foreigners with detailed information. They are also able to

represent foreign entrepreneurs in courts. Finally, as mentioned before, they also offer relocation

services (looking for house, kindergarten etc.).


Due to the fact that very few foreigners ask respondents for support in business matters,

they are not able to clearly distinguish particular barriers in developing enterprises by immigrants.

Therefore, most of them usually refer to general problems that might face every single foreigner at

pubic administration offices or at a work place in Poland.

What is of special importance, the most frequently mentioned obstacle that immigrants have

to cope with is highly bureaucratic organizational structure of Polish public administration.

Complicated procedures as well as slow decision making process – as it was noted by one

interviewee – “discourage foreigners to start own enterprises and push them into a shadow


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economy”.

Another basic problem that both foreign workers and entrepreneurs face is lack of adequate

competences of clerks working in Polish public institutions. For instance, all respondents

underlined poor knowledge of foreign languages (especially English and Russian) and lack of

“cultural sensitivity” of clerks. Therefore respondents are often asked by immigrants to help them

with filling documents in, translation of documents, interpreting at public offices or being

intermediary in courts.

Finally, the respondents also argue about unclear and unfavourable regulations regarding

establishment of companies by foreigners. For instance, it refers to limited possibilities for

foreigners residing in Poland for a fixed period of time to establish following types of enterprises:

limited partnership (spółka komandytowa),

limited partnership issuing shares – mixed joint stock and limited company (społka

komandytowo-akcyjna),

limited liability company (społka z o.o.),

joint-stock company (spółka akcyjna)

Furthermore, immigrants have also limited access to bank loans. Thus, they prefer banks

from their countries of origin.

5.5.4. Identified knowledge gaps among immigrants

Interestingly, the respondents note no major knowledge gaps in terms of business issues

among foreigners requesting support. It seems foreigners who wish to establish or develop already

existing company have a clear idea of their own business beforehand and thus they do not need

support in this area. As it was mentioned by one of the interviewees: “Foreigners rarely request

advice in business issues. But if it happens, they usually already know what they want to do and

how to get money to start an enterprise. If someone is from Turkey or Vietnam they are financially

supported by their compatriots who are residents here for years”. Only in few cases the

respondents were asked to consult business plans and legal requirements before establishment of

a company and to help in accountancy.

On the other hand, all 3 interviewed university experts also mentioned low legal awareness

of certain groups of immigrants (particularly from Asia), who “often tend to make use of rules

based ‘guanxi’, i.e. interpersonal relations, rather than legal regulations when it comes to do


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business”. It is thus important to identify both knowledge gaps and cultural differences that might

obstruct communication and cooperation with foreigners.

Summing up, it seems most problems immigrants face when developing own entities is due

to unfavourable structural conditions of running business entities in Poland (i.e. language barriers

or bureaucratic procedures that cause the majority of problems) rather than their knowledge gaps

or lack of experience.


Despite lack of interest in business advice among immigrants, the respondents agree there is

a need for individual development of their competences in this area. They also foresee creation of

specific counselling centres for prospective immigrant entrepreneurs in the near future. It is due to

the fact the staff of the examined entities is very low or even not qualified at all in business issues.

Furthermore, the interviewees observe slowly growing number of immigrants each year

(particularly in the Warsaw district) and thus the demand for these services should also increase.

Respondents also agree the person working with immigrants should predominantly have vast

knowledge of a legal system of the hosting country, particularly business law regulations.

Furthermore he/she should speak foreign languages (particularly English and Russian) and have

some “cultural sensitivity” to understand different attitudes and values of foreigners. Moreover, it

is also advisable to have at least basic knowledge about socio-political and economic contexts of

immigrant’s country of origin. It is thus important to share responsibilities among employees of

entities working with migrants according to both their professional competences and interests.

As there is a need for further development of advisors’ competences in the above mentioned

areas, they would like to take part in tailor-made courses and training that would prepare them to

changing needs of immigrants. Thus all respondents are also interested in results and training

materials of the “BestForm” project.

5.6 RO: General data

The field research performed showed the different kind of business advisers that exist at

national level in Romania: business advisers working in public entities, NGOs, institutions or

foundations.

5.6.1 Characteristics of business advisers


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People interviewed are from 7 counties of Romania – Cluj, Braşov, Dolj, Galaţi, Prahova,

Dâmboviţa, Argeş, which allowed us to make an overview of business advisers representatives of

the entire country. Their characteristics are rendered in the following lines.

Regarding the gender of the business advisers, the majority of business advisers in Romania

is represented by women. Also, the majority of the advisers are young adults: from 20 to 35 years

old. This is a positive feature, as it can be translated by a strong dynamism of this field. However,

this field - which is not new – knew lots of changes during its evolution, because of the changing

legislation, the accesion of Romania in EU and of the fact that there are more and more immigrants

who come to Romania. So, the the business advisers need strong professional skills to manage

these issues.

Nearly 100% of the business advisers who where interviewed hold higher education studies

(university) and thus they have good qualifications for this type of work. The majority of them are

employed with indeterminate contracts and some of them work as volunteer under part-time

contracts. In regards to their experience, most of them work in this area for less than 3 years, and a

few ones for less than 6 years.

In the opinion of the interviewed business advisers, being a business adviser is a choice that

they don’t regret at all, because of the knowledge and professional skills that it brings in many

areas: legislation, getting to know other cultures, meeting new peoples, the possibility to follow

their development, etc. As the interviewees declared, it seems to be a very enriching field for

them:

“I choose to be a business adviser because it is a very exciting and interesting area, it is

permanently under change” (Raduca, 30 years old, Business Adviser for disadvantaged groups,

Târgovişte).

“It brings me work satisfaction, because it is important to me to be able to help and support people

that are in difficulty, to identify their needs and see their evolution in our country” (Eleonora, 30

years old, business adviser for the community of immigrants, Târgu Mureş).

Concerning the workplace and the different institutions where immigrants and

disadvantaged people can come to get information, we can notice 3 types of entities mostly

integrated here: the associations, the NGOs and some public entities.

Communication, patience, devotion, impartiality but empathy, tolerance, training and good

negotiation skills are the main necessary professional skills identified, together with a deep


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knowledge of the Romanian legislation. Some of the interviwees also underlined the fact that

knowing other languages is very important for them to exchange information and to communicate

with immigrants, because it often happens that immigrants or disadvantaged groups don’t know

any other language but their own.

Nearly 90% of the persons we interviwed have answered “yes” to the question refering to

their participation in training courses for improving the professional skills, meaning that they

would be interested in participating to such training.

5.6.2 Service provided: from business advisers to the customers

Many existing entities have the aim to help both the national citizens of Romania as well as

foreigners with legal stay on the territory, meaning the people in search of information and advice.

From the answers to the question concerning the position that the people interviewed are

currently occupying, it appears that most of the business advisers in Romania are working for

immigrants community (in NGOs or associations), in the field of social assistance (most of the time

in NGOs) ; also some of them are specialists in the field of disadvantaged groups or in sustainable

developement field.

It is important to underline that these entities do not provide only advices for immigrants or

disadvantaged group of immigrants. These persons are counselors at national level, for immigrants

but also for Romanian citizens. Their work consists mainly in providing information about the

Romanian legislation, about immigrants’ rights and obligations in different areas, orienting the

clients depending on their needs through consulting, offering advice and performing specific

follow-up: this can be delivered individually and thus more personalized or in groups. Certain

entities work by organizing their clients in groups of 2 to 15 persons. The duration of these

meetings depends on the needs of the customers; usually it takes between 1 and 3 hours for group

meetings and between 1 to 15 hours for individual meetings. It is necessary to carefully operate

with these data – in fact we performed just an overview of the situation – and the business

advisers underlined that each situation is different, especially when it’s about individual meetings,

and the time spent with the clients depends on their need. A similar sitaution can be found in

relation to the question the question about how long it takes (in hours) the training/counselling for

opening a business:

“There is not a specific period, it depends on the project, on its complexity, on the abilities of our

customers…” replied a 60 years old woman working as business advisor in the field of sustainable


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development, from Cluj Napoca.

Different working methods are used by business advisors to provide the best services and

information to their clients: personalized meetings, free talks, roundtables, debates, using posters

and printed documentation, organizing special events to inform and integrate their customers

within the Romanian culture and community, etc.

5.6.3 Main typologies of the clients served by business advisers: background and activities

Different groups of clients came to these entities to ask information and advices, such as:

citizens originating from third countries (they represent the majority of immigrants):

students, unemployed, people in search of asylum;

people coming to join their family who established already in Romania.

Concerning the customers’ background, without taking into account the students, nearly 70%

of them graduated and finished their studies at college level, 20% at the level of high school and

10% of them have a diploma of higher education. This information is important for understanding

the kind of support these groups are searching for, when they contact the advise and counselling

entities.

For those who developed an activity or found a job, we managed to identify the following

areas of activities: most of them works in business and services, agriculture area, medical area or

they came here to have the opportunity to study in Romania.

Some positive evolution of their number was noticed in industry and construction area.

5.6.4 Understanding the needs of their clients and views on the existing gaps

The most frequent requests the counselor receive are about the legislation in force, financial

issues, work placement and relation with clients. Nevertheless, the interviewees also emphasized

some others needs coming from their groups of clients. The relationships of immigrants with the

public authorities, for example, remain a big problem mainly because of the complexity of the

legislation and because of the language barrier. Cultural aspects also seem to be important and not

enough developed for immigrants in order to understand their new environment and integrate

themselves easily in Romania. Moreover, an important part of immigrants and disadvantaged

groups which are coming do not have the appropriate skills to find a job, to enter the labour

market. This way, many councilors believe they need more qualifications and courses in order to

increase their professional abilities.


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In general, business advisor’s advices and information are sufficient to support immigrant’s

needs. Nevertheless, some aspects - like the cultural and educational ones - seem to be needed in

addition. Concerning the gaps between what the immigrants expects and the reality, the business

advisors have underlined different issues that immigrants and disadvantaged group meet in

Romania, and that we have already advanced before. It concerns their bad understanding of the

legislation and their relation with the public authorities because of the complexity of the

legislation. Those issues bring distrust to immigrants and because of that, sometimes they want to

give up. Here there are some examples from the counselors whom we interviewed:

Issues regarding the immigrants:

“90% of immigrants don't participate in Romanian language courses as it is stipulated by

legislation, because they don't know that this service is one of their right in Romania. Those who

are proficient in Romanian language, do have these language skills because they lived in Romania

for many years or they are married to Romanian citizens” (Andreea, 23 years old, employed into an

NGO in Braşov).

”Some of them distrust the information and counseling services offered for free” (Eleonora, 30

years old business advisor for immigrant community in Târgu Mureş).

”The low level of the average qualifications and knowledge they have make their integration in the

work place more difficult” (Alexandru, 34 years old business advisor for disadvantaged group).

Issues regarding the public autorities:

„The legislation is too ambiguous, there is a real lack of information, institutional procedures are

not predictable and that lead to difficult relations with the autorities” (60 years old business

adviser in sustainable development from Cluj-Napoca.

„The legislation is not up-to-date with the situation, it is illogical, inconsistent and too strict”(Astrid,

30 years old business advisor for the community of immigrants).

5.7 DE: General data

5.7.1 Characteristics of business advisers

The job as a business adviser is a new challenge every time because every founder wants to

have an individual business.


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The activity of a business adviser is part of the tasks of the communal business development.

It is important because it contributes to the national economy and to the creation of

apprenticeship training positions. Foundations are an important source of innovation.

The founder has to be informed very well in order to have a good start and succeed in

business.

Some advisers describe it as personal vocation. Some advisers stress the demand of their

position and the variety of their work which they like very much. One adviser wrote that he does

the job because of his personal and individual experience.

Some advisers wrote that they want to support migrants and show them job-related

perspectives. Some advisers also stress that their work is a very important social task.

5.7.2 Service provided: from business advisers to the customers

According to the answer given by people interviewed the main functions of business advisers

are: Consultant, business manager, project director, corporate consultant, management

consultant, chairman, adviser and leader. Among their task they develop the following ones:

from concept until consultancy

first consultancy

political consultancy

consultancy for people interested in setting up an own business

support for “new” and “old” business

coaching

creation of apprenticeship training positions

mediation of contacts

placing

determination of demand

acquisition

support during the start-up phase: decision making & judicial questions & information

about subvention, sponsorship, finances & help work out a business plan


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type of clients:

people who want to set up an own business or are in the start-up phase or in the assurance

phase

people who have a business

entrepreneurs

craftsmen

areas: attendance, gastronomy, catering, health, out of the unemployment

all kinds of migrants from all parts of the world & every age

Services provided:

first consultancy

mediation

coaching

qualification: workshops

talking about experience with members

consultancy for business and foundation

organization and accomplishment of workshops and special courses

consultancy regarding subvention and sponsorship

support regarding the choice of location

questions regarding the labour market and corporate-policy (creation of apprenticeship

training positions)

placing in line with networking

consultancy regarding economic questions

general information for founders

coaching after the foundation

expertise/statement for the government agency and the bank

creation of the business plan

consultancy regarding judicial and fiscal questions

participation in projects

renting of space/accommodation

consultancy regarding financing/funding


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corporate/company/business succession

business-training

business service

The most frequent requests/ support needed from their clients are marketing, legal matters,

sales & selling, and financial issues. Accountancy, banking issues and relations with clients were

mentioned less often. The importance of the business plan especially the aspects efficiency and

profitability were named and the following general topics: taxes, subvention, questions regarding

social insurance, formality, statement.

Concerning the knowledge gaps identified in their clients, responders commented there is

often only poor knowledge about the business plan and its contents or about competing

companies, the own regional economic policy, ones unique selling point and taxes.

Often there is only poor basic knowledge about how all is economically linked and

connected.

lack of adequate knowledge about marketing, taxes, perspective of the clients,

laws, branch of trade, publicity/advertising, contracts, accountancy, strategy

regarding acquisition, realistic judgment/estimation of the market potential and the

capital needed (often the people think, they need less than in fact), social

insurance, legal form of a company, subvention, sponsorship, realistic sales

expectancy, presentation and description of products and services provided, lack of

a definition of their target group, language, social hedging for the future (but often

to little thought of it), lack of positive examples (to motivate founders), lack of

information where help could be found (advisers for example), lack of knowledge

about networking

Economic organizations are not able to create an access to founders and business companies with

migration background. The cooperation between economic organizations and foreign organizations

of all levels (national, regional, communal, local) has to be optimized and assured in the long run

because the foreign organizations do not have enough staff to contribute more and working in an

honorary capacity only is not enough in the long run.


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In opinion of people interviewed the main issues including barriers affecting clients groups are:

bureaucracy

financing

fear of the own courage

financial security until a founder gain enough money to live from it; often the first 9 month

in which a founder gets money from the government is not enough;

lack of seed capital (often only 5000 Euro or 10000 Euro, in this situation it is very difficult

and not always possible to get a credit from the bank)

the obligation to have a master craftsman’s diploma is a problem for founders in this area

reservation about public organizations

strategy, acquisition, further development

special language to convince the customer of one’s expertise

emotional barrier to make use of help or to participate in courses for founders

language skills

often they are very young and have only little work experience and little information about

the sector

creation of the business plan, distribution, realistic perspective on the market potential


The most important:

expertise/professional competence /knowledge about self-employment

business-management skills

social competence, empathy, sociableness

huge practical experience

cultural knowledge

strategic business management

analyse the idea to found a business critically, but also motivate

to be available if support is needed

to be open

multilingualism


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analytic ability

understanding for networking

respect and appreciation

imagination

The majority shared the opinion that they possessed the needed competences and skills. Only

some advisors thought that they needed to gain more profound skills/special skills. They

mentioned:

business-management skills

knowledge connected with marketing

acquisition of customers/clients

criteria for subventions

importance of lifelong learning

One respondent mentioned that he would like to participate in a test and get feedback whether he

needs to improve his knowledge in a specific area or not. Another respondent explained that he

has to search information (“learn”) for every individual case because there are different details in

each case.

Finally, concerning what type of skilss/competences they think they need to improve, people

interviewed commented the following ones:

knowledge about ethnic economy

boost advisory skills

how to manage the contact with difficult clients

marketing, acquisition

how to behave in crisis conversations

more information about different sectors

5.8 Conclusions

The following table summarizes all the information presented:


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CO PT ES UK IT PL RO DE

Nº people 20 20 20 20 21 20 20

Age 28-51 Thirties-forties 35-49 29-45 Medium age 20-35 Medium age

Gender More women More women More men balanced No data More women No data

Educ. Back. High High High High Medium-high High High

Where they

work?

(Majority)

In organizations engaged within

the area of immigration and

entrepreneurship.

trade unions,

workers unions,

associations and

nonprofit

association working

with immigrants

in Support Organisations

offering not just business

support but a wider

range of services,

including welfare advice,

advocacy and basic skills

training.

NGOs,

Foundations,

Associations…

NGOs that were

established in order to

help foreigners from the

former USSR countries to

adapt to Polish legal and

cultural context

Public entities,

NGOs,

institutions,

Foundations.

Public entities, NGOs,

institutions, Foundations

Tasks Support for

jobseekers/unemployed

regarding entrepreneurship;

Providing training for

professional

development/entrepreneurial

competences;

General and direct

consultancy General

guidance.

Development of

different

procedures: i.e

name of business

Analysis of the

Information & Advice;

Training; Mentoring and

Networking. Information

& Advice is by far the

main service provided by

business advisers.

General and direct

consultancy,

General guidance.

Development of

different

procedures:

Identification of

training needs

supporting foreigners in

legalization/extending

residence and work

permits. Offer various

legal advice, support in

filling official documents

in, as well as

interpreting/translating in

General and

direct

consultancy,

General guidance.

Development of

different

procedures:

Identification of

first consultancy, political

consultancy, consultancy

for people interested in

setting up an own business,

support for “new” and

“old” business, coaching,

creation of apprenticeship

training positions,


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General support for immigrants

towards entrepreneurship

projects´ feasibility

and development of

business plans.

Identification of

training needs

among clients.

Search of funding

resources,

programs, aids.

Diagnosis of the

situation of an

already developed

business.

among clients. public offices or job

centres. They also organize

various cultural events

training needs

among clients

mediation of contacts,

placing, determination of

demand, acquisition,

support during the start-up

phase: decision making &

judicial questions &

information about

subvention, sponsorship,

finances & help work out a

business plan

Barriers

detected

Difficulty of understanding legal

and financial questions, Poor

access t loans and Others like:

Language, ICT, Marketing ,

management with clients.

Access to financial

resources

Legal situation

Knowledge gap

Language Insecurity

Financial related issues,

such as lack of capital or

under-capitalisation is

the most frequently

mentioned barrier. Poor

or inadequate relevant

knowledge on the part of

entrepreneurs is the

second most frequently

mentioned barrier.

legal matters,

financial issues,

access to credit

and lack of the

technical language

domain.

bureaucratic

organizational structure;

lack of adequate

competences of clerks

working in Polish public

institutions; unclear and

unfavorable regulations

regarding establishment of

companies by foreigners;

Limited access to credits.

Difficulty of

understanding

legal and financial

questions, Poor

access t loans and

Others like:

management

with clients.

Bureaucracy; financing;

fear of the own courage;

financial security until a

founder gain enough

money to live from it; lack

of seed capital; the

obligation to have a master

craftsman’s diploma ;

reservation about public

organizations; strategy,

acquisition, further

development; special

language to convince the

customer of one’s


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expertise; emotional

barrier to make use of help

or to participate in courses

for founders; language

skills; creation of the

business plan, distribution,

realistic perspective on the

market potential

Identified

knowledge

gaps among

clients

Lack of general information,

legal and management issues,

lack of knowledge of labor

employment and national laws,

cultural differences, different

academic qualifications,

bureaucratic system

Lack of general

information, legal

and management

issues, lack of

knowledge of

national laws,

bureaucratic system

Marketing related issues,

including marketing

planning, selling and

attracting and

maintaining clients,

Financial, which includes

access to capital and

financial management.

Lack of general

information, legal

and management

issues, lack of

knowledge of

national laws,

bureaucratic

system

unfavorable structural

conditions of running

business entities in Poland

rather than their

knowledge gaps or lack of

experience.

Legislation,

financial issues,

relation with

clients/public

authorities,

language and

qualification level.

Marketing, legal matters,

sales & selling, and

financial issues.

Accountancy, banking

issues and relations with

clients were mentioned less

often. Poor knowledge

about the business plan

and basic economy aspects

Necessary

skills and

competences

as business

advisers

1.Soft skills: Interpersonal skills,

ability to be flexible, creative

open minded, good

communication skills, be up to

date, empathy

2.Hard skills: financial

knowledge operational abilities

to business start up.

1.Social and

interpersonal skills,

good

communication, self

confidence,

empathy,

responsibility, keep

updated

Personal skills, including

Empathy/Motivational,

Advisory and

Communication skills

Keeping Up-to-date and

Maintaining Standards

Motivation

Soft skills

identified as

indispensable. BA’s

have to be

sensitive to the

needs of the target

groups. Empathy,

good business

network contacts

need for individual

development of their

competences in this area.

knowledge of a legal

system of the hosting

country, particularly

business law regulations.

Furthermore he/she

Communication,

patience,

devotion,

impartiality,

empathy,

tolerance,

training, good

negotiation skills,

depth knowledge

expertise/professional

competence /knowledge

about self-employment;

business-management

skills; social competence,

empathy, sociableness;

huge practical experience;

cultural knowledge;

strategic business


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2.Professional skills:

knowledge in the

field they advice:

marketing, finance,

legal matters

3.Organizational

skills

are important.

Importance of

communication

and interpersonal

skills and the

ability to build a

relationship;

“knowledge skills”,

on the other hand

“social skills”.

should speak foreign

languages (particularly

English and Russian) and

have some “cultural

sensitivity” to understand

different attitudes and

values of foreigners

concerning

national law.

management; analyse the

idea to found a business

critically, but also motivate;

to be available if support is

needed; to be open;

multilingualism; analytic

ability; understanding for

networking; respect and

appreciation and

imagination

Table 12: Comparative analysis of business advisers’ profile in all countries.

Source: national need analysis reports made by project partners.


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6. Good practices in business advise addressed to immigrants (some examples from PT, ES and PL)

6.1 PT:

In Portugal there are many good initiatives to help immigrants becoming entrepreneurs.

There are several public funded initiatives, which have as objective the improvement of the labor

market conditions for immigrants.

Through results obtained with the interviews and the inquiries done with business advisors,

it was possible to find highly motivated people, who had a sincere passion and commitment with

their jobs, and willing to make a difference for people.

For instance, a good practice identified was the Programa de Empreendedorismo Imigrante

(PEI), from ACIDI. It is related to immigrant-entrepreneurship promotion in which both the general

coordinator (Ms. Ana Couteiro) and the advisers´ coordinator (Mr. José Soares Ferreira) were

interviewed.

The uniqueness about the PEI project is that they make use of a very practical approach to

make it more understandable for their target group (immigrants). The project also aims to educate

trainers to train immigrants in entrepreneurship. The people behind the PEI project are ‘real life

people’ understood as people that have an entrepreneurial experience themselves or that have

worked within this area. This common feature allows for all the training initiatives to be founded

in practical rather theoretical grounds, enhancing the potential benefits for immigrant

entrepreneurs.

In 2010, a specific training program for trainers/consultants was developed, based on the

Tree Model developed by José Soares Ferreira (one of the interviewee). It dealt with 2 main topics:

risk assessment (to analyse the feasibility of the business idea of the entrepreneur) and

entrepreneurial skills assessment. Communicational and interpersonal skills, however, were not

considered priority skills within the training program. Still, this training of trainers can be

considered a good practice due to its innovative character (one of the first initiatives of this type in

Portugal) and to its concerns with the service provided to the potential immigrant entrepreneurs.

6.2 ES:

In Spain there are many interesting initiatives in the field of immigrant business advice.

Through the results obtained with the interviews carried out, it was possible to find some of them


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like “Emprendedores inmigrantes en red” the initiative promoted by Cirilo y Metodio Association

(here in after ABE), located in Madrid.

ABE support and provide its services especially within the immigrant collective. Its clients

come from different countries, 19, but overall from Bulgaria, Rumania, Ecuador and Morocco.

They have different educational backgrounds. In some cases, immigrants have intermediate studies

and in other, high studies. In comparison with others, immigrants from other European countries

are who have high studies more often.

ABE provides different services. Among these services can be highlighted the followings:

- General advice in different areas: social, learning and legal.

- Development Labour and social insertion projects.

- Informative materials and documents concerning immigrant rights and relations

between Spain and Bulgaria.

- Development of conferences, workshops, meetings.....

- Campaigns to raise public awareness about the integration of immigrants and

intercultural topics.

ABE is implementing the project “Emprendedores Inmigrantes en Red” with the official

support from the regional government of Madrid. The aim of this tool is to provide support to

those immigrants that want to create their own businesses. This support comprises individual

complete advice and monitoring (face to face and on-line). The final objectives are to enhance the

capability of immigrants in order to create their own companies and to share experiences between

new and “old” entrepreneurs. Services offered within this initiative: Guidance and advice: on

business idea, market researches, initial investment, management of administrative procedures,

financial resources..etc.

- Training: special training for businesses creation.

- Monitoring: Search of possible venues...etc.

- Establishment of links with other institutions, business services providers and suppliers and

even, national/regional and local authorities. Networks (understood as working

methodology) are important.

Another good practice is those which is being implementing by the Spanish Labour and

Immigration Ministry together with Trade Unions. They created a special program to support and

promote business starts ups by immigrants. This initiative it is being supported by the European


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Social Fund. As it is mention on the second chapter of this report, the program wants to:

- Encourage the equal labour opportunity.

- To make aware the immigrants towards the self employment.

- Create and consolidate the businesses created by immigrants.

- Promote and encourage the use of ICT.

The program is being developed through a net of offices that offer advice and information

(also on-line through https://www.e-inmigrantes.net/IFE_IN/index.htm (available only in Spanish)).

6.3 PL

Since there are no specific counseling centres for prospective immigrant entrepreneurs and

businesses, advise plays marginal role in daily services of public/private institutions directed at

immigrants, the respondents do not have grounded knowledge about good practices in this area. It

also seems that the lack of interest in business counseling among immigrants is due to the fact

most immigrant companies are based on foreigners’ networks and thus they do not need external

support in business issues.

However, there are few initiatives suggested by the interviewees that help immigrants to

develop their enterprises. The following on-line services present basic law regulations concerning

foreigners’ stay as well as simple tips for everyday life in Poland:

- Kultilink.pl (www.kultilink.pl),

- Polskie Forum Migracyjne (www.forummigracyjne.org),

- Migrant.info.pl (www.migrant.info.pl).


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7. Conclusions

PT:

- Immigration in Portugal is considerably high and is an important issues, with social,

cultural, political and economic implications;

- Portugal has a very favorable and positively-assessed integration policy. There is even a

concern, in terms of public policies, to incorporate intercultural issues in the public services

provided by the government;

- Still, immigrant entrepreneurs in Portugal face most of the barriers and difficulties

immigrants in other European countries face: communicational problems, difficulties in

understanding the business culture of the host country, participation in highly-competitive

and low-entry barriers markets;

- Most of the initiatives related to immigrants integration as well as to promotion of

immigrant entrepreneurship are promoted by public institutions, such as ACIDI;

- The promotion of immigrant entrepreneurship in Portugal is something relatively new and

does not yet fully satisfy the immigrant demands.

- The initiatives undertaken have a more generic and guiding character, not providing

concrete and specific answers; The business advisers working with immigrants in Portugal

have a very diverse profile and academic and professional backgrounds;

- Still, they tend to have a practical rather than a theoretical attitude when dealing with

immigrants, specially on the grounds of their own experience as entrepreneurs;

- Business advisers oriented to immigrant entrepreneurship in Portugal also tend to have

consolidated hard skills, bearing a deep knowledge of technical issues related to legal and

financial skills;

- As a result, the business advisers either interviewed or enquired seem to fit a mainstream

profile, meaning that they work as business advisers towards immigrants entrepreneurs

due to their professional or academic background rather than due to their links with

immigrant communities;

- The results of the need analysis procedures support this conclusion. The understanding of

legal and financial issues is, simultaneously, the area in which business advisers are most

qualified and one of the most important barriers to immigrant entrepreneurship in

Portugal. This leads to the conclusion that business advisers in Portugal are neither able to


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clearly explain these subjects, nor to simplify the message to be transmitted, denoting a

deficit in terms of communicational skills;

- Other interpersonal skills were considered important in the business advice activity, such

as empathy, flexibility and motivational support.

ES: - Immigration in Spain is a very important field. Nowadays, 14.9% of population is immigrant.

The most representative immigrant communities are those from other Spanish-speaker

countries, followed by people from EU-27 and immigrants from North Africa. Immigrants

emigrate to Spain mainly to obtain a better job. They work overall in service and

constructions sectors.

- In Spain, entrepreneurial culture has improved over the years. In addition, the country leads

the ranking of countries which have more integration capacity (8th place). This context is

favorable for those people: immigrants/national, who wants to become entrepreneur.

- According to the Spanish Ministry of Labour and Immigration, immigrants are currently

more entrepreneurial than national people. As long as the trend of number of national

entrepreneurs is decreasing, in the case of immigrants it is increasing facing better the

economic crisis. Men are more entrepreneurial than women and there is a clear difference

between the type of businesses created by women, who create companies within the

service sector and the type of businesses created by men that are linked to restaurants, the

development of products and specialized services.

- Spain benefits from slights favourable policies for integration. In terms of business advice

there are both, public and private organizations working in this field. In some cases, they

work together in order to join effort: this is the case of the Spanish Labour and Immigration

Ministry and Trade Unions within the program: E-inmigrantes.net.

- Business advisors oriented to immigrant entrepreneurship in Spain have a diverse profile

but in general, and as far its educational background is concerned, they present a high

educational level; most of them work in associations and trade unions, and provide a

general consultancy: covering matters like administrative procedures, legal and financial

aspects, search of possible funds…. The main barriers they see affecting their clients

(mainly from Latin America, Eastern Europe and North Africa) are the access to financial

resources and the lack of general knowledge about what an entrepreneurs is and which


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aspects are covered by this figure. They consider soft skills as main group of competences

that a successful advisor need to know and control and although they consider that already

have, they would like to receive training in this field.

UK:

- There has been a net loss of jobs compared to the pre-recession peak of 29.57m recorded

in May 2008. The statistics for UK born and non-UK born people show that the rate of

employment for non-UK born people (67.3%) is nearly 4 per cent lower than that of UK

born people (71%). However, some migrants groups have higher employment rates than

UK-born people. In 2009, migrants from Eastern Europe had the highest employment rate

but also some of the lowest average wages compared to migrants from other countries.

- On average, unemployment rates for migrants have been higher than those for UK born.

However, unemployment rates vary widely for different groups. Pakistani and Bangladeshi

women show the two lowest rates of economic activity.

- Some of the differences in employment rates and earnings between ethnic minority groups

and the population as a whole can be explained by differences such as educational

attainment, but a proportion is due to discrimination on the part of employers. The

recession is likely to have disproportionately impacted on ethnic minorities

- Ethnic minorities in the UK account for eight per cent of the population but in London as a

whole they account for 29 percent and in some London areas for over fifty per cent of the

local population.

- There has been an increase in ethnic minority businesses in the UK, in particular London.

Black Africans are more than three times more likely to start a business than their white

counterparts. However, their business failure rate is also higher than that of any other

group. The reason for the high business start- ups of the ethnic minorities could be their

desire to exercise more control over their lives and careers or, less positively, because they

are unable to find employment in the mainstream economy due to labour disadvantage

and other socio-cultural constraints.


108

]

- Important barriers are affecting the performance of ethnic minority businesses, including

poor access to credit, narrow customer base, poorly equipped premises in poor locations,

discrimination, and racism. In addition many ethnic minority entrepreneurs lack

management skills and also finance to grow their businesses

- New migrants are more diverse in terms of nationality, occupation and gender. New wave

migrants come from Eastern Europe (the A8 countries), Africa and the Middle East. There is

a fundamental division between economic and political migrants. Most economic migrants

appear to come from Eastern Europe. Nearly half of the African and Middle East

respondents in a recent study were refugees.

- The same study also found a concentration of new businesses in a narrow range of

economic sectors such as low-end retail, catering, and personal services. This pattern was

common to Eastern European and Africa and Middle East migrants.

- There are major changes to the provision of business support services in the UK driven by a

reduction in government funding. Provision of business support is not a statutory service

for government. In consequence, enterprise support is now a casualty of the new era of

austerity in the UK.

- The negative impact of reduced business support on immigrant entrepreneurs is likely to be

weak. The Community Based Business Support (CBBS) model in the UK was largely

developed in response to the failure by business support agencies to engage with aspiring

and existing entrepreneurs from ethnic minority background, including immigrants and

refugees as well as people living in deprived areas. The model’s principle of empowering

communities with the business skills to help their own entrepreneurs was also developed

as an attempt to increase reliance on communities’ own social capital thereby reducing

their dependency on external funding. The CBBS model does not prescribe a rigid solution

or approach to supporting the needs of specific communities, as it is up to its protagonists

to give it shape and sustain. On this basis, the model offers an effective mechanism for

enhancing entrepreneurial activity in immigrant entrepreneurs.


109

]

- Most respondents, 50%, work in Support Organisations offering not just business

support but a wider range of services, 20% work in specialist Business Support

Organisations, 15% operate as independent business consultants and 15% no longer

work as business advisers. The male-female split was fairly even in the sample; 55% of

respondents are male and 45% female. Most respondents (55%) are mature

professionals in the 35-49 age group; 25% are over 50 years of age and 20% are less

than 35 years of age.

- Most respondents work (or had experience of working) with disadvantaged groups,

particularly ethnic minorities and women but also the unemployed, refugees, lone

parents and ex-offenders. Start ups and fairly young SME businesses were also an

important category. It appears that only a small number of advisers in the sample work

with established, growing businesses.

- Information & Advice is by far the main service provided by business advisers. This

includes assistance with business planning.

- According to respondents, Marketing related issues, including marketing planning,

selling and attracting and maintaining clients, are the most frequent type of support

needs. The next most frequent type of support needs is Financial, which includes access

to capital and financial management.

- Financial related issues, such as lack of capital or under-capitalisation are the barriers

most frequently mentioned by respondents. This is followed by poor relevant

knowledge (business and technical) on the part of entrepreneurs. A narrow

understanding of the market place is also seen as an important limitation. A few

advisers also mentioned the ‘welfare benefits trap’ as a major limitation for some

unemployed clients.

- The main skills business advisors use when assisting clients are Personal Skills, including

Empathy/Motivational, Advisory and Communication skills. This suggests that whilst

business knowledge and experience are essential, business advisers need to be skilful in

developing rapport, managing relationships and imparting knowledge.


110

]

IT:

- The main obstacles for foreign citizens wishing to undertake a business, concern

legislative constraints, bureaucracy, access to information, access to credit and

financing, language skills, problems of racism and discrimination, problems relating to

the renting of premises for the exercise.

- The support services offered by some labor associations, trade union and nonprofit

organizations seek to provide information and training courses tailored to the specific

needs of immigrant entrepreneur.

- it’s possible to make two main observations:

- immigrant business activities carried out predominantly by male (although we

can record an increase in the number of women particularly in some sectors and

for some nationalities), the overwhelming presence of the business activities

conducted by immigrants in the legal form of sole proprietorship.

- immigrant entrepreneurship, although not representative of the experience of

most of the immigrants who live and work in our country, is a growing

phenomenon. As reported by several authors, the fact that immigrants are self-

employed could be indicative of their long-term perspective to stay in the host

country. It is, however, still to be determined whether this corresponds to

effective integration or just better inclusion as compared to immigrant worker

employees. This observation must be understood in a broader reflection on the

motivations that lead to the choice of self-employment, if it was a fallback facing

difficulties in finding employment in the job market, or instead a project for

social and economic rise that could lead to a greater integration.

- One of the most important aspects emphasized by interviewed experts, it’s the

difficulty on credit access. In fact, the credit institutions consider immigrants as

unreliable customers and often they require them additional conditions than

those usually asked to Italians citizens.


111

]

PL:

- There are no specialized business counsulting centres for immigrants in Poland. Existing

entities dealing with immigrants are rather focused on providing services concerning

legalization of work and residence in Poland, solving other daily problems immigrants

face and – to lesser extent – cross-cultural mediation, rather than business advisory

services. It seems it is due to a relatively low number of entrepreneurs among

immigrants as well as, on the other hand, unfavourable legal conditions of running

enterprises by foreigners. Furthermore, immigrants tend to look for advice and support

in business issues among their compatriots, who already live in Poland, rather than

among external experts.

- However, the representatives of the examined institutions are interested in

development of their competences in business matters. As the increase of immigration

is expected in Poland during next years, a demand for this type of services will also

probably grow. Thus, the training materials developed within the “BestForm” project

might be a good opportunity to extend qualifications and skills of people working with

immigrants in business advisory realm.

RO:

- There is not too much information available about the immigrants in Romania,

especially information concerning the immigrants who decided to open a business on

the Romanian territory, because this is still a recent behavior/phenomenon.

- While most of the immigrants are coming from Moldavia, Turkey and China, the

number of immigrants from others countries is increasing year by year, due to the

opportunities and challenges that Romania can offer.

- Immigrants coming to Romania exhibit different backgrounds and have specials needs:

joining their family, finding a work, having the opportunity to open own business or

studying into a continuing changing environment.

- The demand is very important and most of the time, the help requested/provided

concerns basic legislation about their rights and obligations on the Romanian territory:

welfare, education, relationship with public authorities, social security, child

protection…


112

]

- The business advisors and counsellors are not able to answer all the customers’

demands and requests.

- the Romanian legislation appears to be very complex and strict for foreigners, which

sometimes can make them giving up. In addition to that, most of immigrants do not

speak Romanian, which is a strong barrier for every aspect of integration.

- there is a lack of information and support concerning the procedures and integration of

immigrants in the Romanian community and on the labor market.

DE:

- Altogether the starting position for people with migration background interested in setting

up an own business is quite feasible because there is a special offer of advisory services

especially for migrants. But there remains a special challenge to improve the awareness

that this offer exists and that people can make use of it.

- It is important to decline the different kinds of barriers of a not negligible part of founders

and entrepreneurs who do not make use of this offer and run into existential problems

which could have been avoided having talked to an adviser well-timed.


113

]

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Documents

Need Analysis Report - ADAM - Leonardo da Vinci Projects and