SME Alliance meets with Economics Affairs Minister Peter Altmaier

Innovation, digitalisation and energy were the main issues discussed at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) in Berlin. The sector associations got straight to point about the most pressing issue facing small and medium-sized enterprises. Mario Ohoven, President of the German Association for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (BVMW), said: “The Third Bureaucracy Relief Act is now in the works – the first two laws unfortunately did not have a big impact. We have in the past provided pages and pages of proposals for cutting bureaucracy.”

Peter Altmaier agreed that the burden on businesses needed to be reduced. He asserted that bureaucracy hinders young people from going into business for themselves. To alleviate this situation, the BMWi is currently in the process of launching a business start-up initiative. It is also, according to Altmaier, working on wide-ranging online administrative services that will ease the burden on SMEs.

BIO Deutschland’s Managing Director, Viola Bronsema, stressed the important role that the biotech industry will play in the future: “After digitalisation the next revolution will be biologisation. The German government should devote more attention to this topic!”