Portal to revolutionize German exports

The German Government is giving its full backing to a revolutionary export portal for small and medium sized business that will be launched later this month at the Ghorfa exporters' conference in Berlin.

'There are 47,500 SMEs in Germany and our objective is to help them to export directly to the Middle East,' says project co-founder Princess Veronika von Anhalt whose association with the region dates back to an official business mission seven years' ago.

'SMEs often do not have the exposure or budget for direct marketing, and lack information about the region. But they have high quality products at very competitive prices. In the past they always had to come with a bigger company and that meant that prices were higher than for direct business'.

The Business Gate Middle East, as the portal is known, is a business club designed to meet the needs of German SME exporters at several levels. There will be an exclusive portal, with dedicated news content, which also offers directory entries to members that is more like a mini-website with full details of company products and services. Plus members can access a comprehensive directory of Middle East businesses to find partners in the region.

'We have spent two-and-a-half years developing the portal and have visited every one of the states in Germany and consulted with hundreds of companies,' says the Princess.

'Our research showed that while German companies are seen as reliable and offering quality products, they are thought to be expensive. But that is not the case. SMEs are very competitive. It is only when they are working on behalf of larger companies that they are expensive. We found that they are 35-40% cheaper when products and services are bought directly.

'We want smaller companies to realize that they do not have to come in with a big company to tackle the Middle East market, and the Internet is an ideal medium to gather them together on to one platform'.

Business Gate Middle East is being launched by leading UAE project development consultancy TecPlan, and the Fraunhofer Innovation Center and Fraunhofer ISST of Berlin. It also has the full support of the German government and the influential Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. The latter is the largest applied research organisation in Europe and acts as a technology and brains trust in Germany, and is widely respected by SMEs.

'We have received tremendous official support for this project,' says Techplan managing director Fawaz Beyhum, a well known businessman in the UAE. 'Being physically here we can also offer German firms our rich experience of the market to save them time. But by using the portal, they should be able to complete an initial market survey and search for business partners before arriving in the region.

'Techplan also has a large office in the centre of Berlin, so they can call into see us. We realize that not everything can be done on the Internet and that the personal touch is still very important. It is also a great psychological strength to have the Fraunhofer involved as this gives people confidence'.

For the moment TecPlan is concentrating on the Business Gate Middle East portal's launch in Germany, but for the future the consultancy is also looking to assist German companies interested in investing into the UAE and other Arab states.

'We can see a lot of potential for German SMEs to invest here to take advantage of low energy costs, cheap labour and the tax advantages,' says Mr. Beyhum. 'You have to be selective, but there is a market here, and exports back to Germany benefit from low freight rates.'

From the point of view of UAE businesses sourcing products in Germany, the Business Gate Middle East portal will offer a new way of contacting SMEs in Germany, and allow them to profit from the cost-savings available by dealing directly with the supplier. That factor alone should make the portal a big success, plus there is the fact that Germany is already the largest exporter of goods and services to the region, so its products are hardly unknown.

In short, the Business Gate Middle East looks like a win-win project that brings new technology to the aid of small and medium sized German companies looking to export to the region. Even the modest fee that SMEs pay to join the portal is 100% tax deductable, so this is essentially a free service.