Support initiatives for new enterprises
The European Commission, DG XXIII, has published an invitation to tender concerning a support initiative for enterprises in the Member States aimed at facilitating access to information on measures for new business. Within the framework of the concerted actions with the Member States on support initiatives for enterprises, the Commission proposes to assist in the exchange of information on support measures and in the promotion of best practice through the creation of specific information tools and by conducting a feasibility study into their potential extension. In the first instance attention will be focused on measures to assist in the early stages of a business life cycle - that is, the creation of new enterprises and their early development. The services required concern three separate but related lots. Tenderers should clearly specify for which lot or lots they are submitting proposals: - Lot 1: Research for and creation of a database of support measures for new enterprises in the Member States and the production of a directory of such measures in several of the official languages of the European Union, both in hard copy (in limited numbers) and on diskette, with an option for publication in CD-ROM format; - Lot 2: Technical support for the design and creation of Internet services, notably WWW sites and newsgroups, to provide a framework for existing European-wide information on business start-up and related measures and to facilitate information exchange between support agencies and enterprises on this subject; - Lot 3: A feasibility study on the future updating, development, exploitation and evaluation of the database and associated directory referred to in lot 1 and of the Internet tools referred to in lot 2. The tenderer may submit a partial tender for one or more lots. In the event of being awarded a contract for one or two of the lots, the tenderer must explicitly undertake to cooperate in good faith with the other contractor(s). The contract for each lot will last for six months. However, it should be noted that the contract for lot 3 will start four months after the contracts for lots 1 and 2 have started. Requests for tender documents should be sent to: European Commission DG XXIII - Enterprise policy, distributive trades, tourism and cooperatives Mr. M. Coyne Unit C/1 200 rue de la Loi (AN 80 1/70) B-1049 Brussels Tel. +32-2-2995089; Fax +32-2-2966278 Completed tenders should be sent to: European Commission DG XXIII - Enterprise policy, distributive trades, tourism and cooperatives Ms. Rodriguez-Toquero Unit C/1 200 rue de la Loi (AN 80 1/70) B-1049 Brussels