The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has begun physically carrying Romanian small and medium enterprises across international borders on the shoulders of its loan officers, one company at a time, in what the bank calls a «hands-on approach to internationalization.»
Daniela Marin, a principal manager at the bank, will present the program at the News.ro event «SMEs, Oxygen for Romania» on September 22, where she is expected to demonstrate the proper carrying technique on a volunteer from the audience. «We found that paperwork was slowing things down,» Marin said. «So we simply pick them up and walk.»
The bank has assigned nine hundred loan officers to the program. Each officer is issued a reinforced backpack, a pair of cross-border walking boots, and a laminated route map. Officers are required to carry one enterprise per day to a foreign market of their choice, with popular destinations including Bulgaria, Hungary, and, for the ambitious, Germany.
At the Constanța branch, officers have begun training by carrying sacks of flour along the Black Sea coast. «The flour does not complain,» said one trainer. «The SMEs do.»
The program has already transformed the town of Otopeni, where a new staging post has been built to accommodate officers and their cargo overnight. Local hotels report full occupancy. A nearby shoe repair shop has hired four additional cobblers.
Next week, the bank plans to introduce a relay system in which officers hand off enterprises at the border, like a baton, to colleagues waiting on the other side.