Peter's ASFB- Competence Center and Organic Farming of Herbs

ASSOCIATION FOR START-UP CO-FINANCING AND VOCATIONAL BUILDING OF SMALL AND FAMILY BUSINESSES

(ASFB – COMPETENCE CENTRE)

PROSPECTUS

Background.

The Association for Start-up , Co-Financing and Vocational Building of Small and Family Businesses (ASFB - Competence Centre) was founded in 2003 as a Non Government Organization (NGO). It has assisted small family-owned wood, plastic and agricultural businesses, some of which had become inactive due to the current unstable economic conditions in Bulgaria, but whose owners have demonstrated a strong entrepreneurial spirit. The ASFB - Competence Centre members are these small and family-owned businesses who agree to cooperate with, support, aid, and exchange knowledge with one another. The ASFB - Competence Centre has a number of partners for education and co-operation like the Bourgas Free University, the Bourgas Chamber of Commerce, a Regional Business Newspaper, some high schools and NGO-s.

Mission.

The mission of ASFB - Competence Centre is to assist small businesses, including in areas with large minority populations (Turkish-Bulgarian and Romi) in the greater Bourgas economic region.

Most of the ASFB - Competence Centre businesses are run by young or minority entrepreneurs. The ASFB grew out of a year-long work with European and American organizations and individual volunteers as well as of management training courses in USA, Germany and the UK during the 1990s.

Goal.

The goal of the ASFB - Competence Centre is to support small and family businesses having entrepreneurial spirit by helping them overcome their lack of a market and marketing skills, lack of practical training in management, and knowledge of sources and programs for micro-financing at reasonable interest rates.

Among the groups most vulnerable to these problems are small and family businesses run by young Bulgarians and minority entrepreneurs among the Romi and Turkish-Bulgarians. The problems have manifested themselves in the frequent failure of such businesses and in the dormancy of many others.

Objectives.

The ASFB’s objectives include:

• micro financing of small projects among the members by purchasing production equipment , spare parts and raw materials, upgrading production facilities
• restarting inactive family businesses
• establishing contacts with local, central and international partners and institutions, scientific organizations, business centers
• involving its members in participating in international projects for economic growth, financed by local as well by EU and American organizations, directed to rural and multiethnic regions
• training “at risk minorities” such as illiterate Romi and ethnic, rural Turkish people in starting small businesses
• teaching basic reading and arithmetic, needed to run a small business
• solving problems of supply and local infrastructure (e.g. energy, waste, etc.) and distribution of end-products
• exploring recycling possibilities to increase profitability
• considering new areas of production and new fields of business that focus on foreign markets

Current Projects:

Teaching Garden: With the support of a BIC member "Arbeitsgemeinschaft NaturStoffe" the ASFB-Competence Centre has established a Teaching Garden for educating and training young illiterate Romi in aspects of modern Agriculture. This garden was developed following three years of efforts by the ASFB-Competence Centre in a unique farm outside of Zhelyo Voyvoda, without fresh water and electricity supply, owned by an young entrepreneur and his elderly parents. The hourly workers on this 5 hectare farm are exclusively Romi , most of them illiterate and unable to perform basic arithmetic. The success of this project will give the entrepreneur an opportunity to learn methods of modern biological agriculture and will provide elementary knowledge of how to grow eight non-food groups of plants to the Romi participants.

Past Projects:

Resurrection of Woodworking Businesses: Two ASFB-Competence Centre members developed their own wood-working project, based on a long-term contract with the Bourgas crude oil refinery. In this project, several small, inactive businesses in different parts of East Bulgaria (Regions of Bourgas, Shumen and Sliven ) were resurrected, six of them with Romi or ethnic Turkish entrepreneurs, with more than 150 employees. In some cases three-party contracts were signed to cover some of the businesses’ debts or to get water or electricity supply to the small businesses’ areas. The most successful example is a Romi family business south of Bourgas, where agreements with the forest authority, and the water and electricity supply companies, were signed for a four month period. In this period one of the future ASFB- Competence Centre members took the financial risk and after implementing new management and cash flow methods, a successful business was resurrected. At the moment, this business is one of the very serious partners of the state owned forest company in the region, with more than 17 small family subgroups.

Know-How Exchange: The ASFB-Competence Centre has successful examples of know-how exchange among small businesses in the ethnic Turkish area north of Aytos and Romi timber businesses in Carevo, south of Bourgas . ASFB-Competence Centre created opportunities for know-how exchanges among small Turkish Bulgarian and Romi timber businesses during critical periods of time .

Current Focus and Need.

ASFB’s current focus is the extending the Teaching garden project to build up a Business and practical training center for biological agriculture . In that connection the ASFB-Competence Centre will need support in consulting, PR development and obtaining farm equipment by donation or favorable financing. The most recent project we have already started is the biological farming of cultivated herbs on 11,6 Ha in the village of Zhelyu Voyvoda, Region Sliven

ASFB is focused also in creation of a network between science and businesses for establishing of a Business Innovation Center for developing new technologies, professional life long building and training in rural areas. For that reason the ASFB-Competence Centre has already undersigned agreements for co-operation with the Bourgas Chamber of Commerce, the Bourgas Free University, with vocational and foreign language schools in Bourgas and Yambol.

Mr. Peter Petrov is chairman of ASFB - Competence centre