1.        INTRODUCTION

 
The Export Initiative Environmental Technologies of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) aims to disseminate and strengthen knowledge and application of environmental and climate protection technologies and innovative (green) infrastructure in targeted countries. Among other activities, the dissemination of knowledge will be specifically promoted through those activities that help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with their high support needs in internationalisation of their "green" range of services to meet the ever-growing global demand for environmental, climate protection and efficiency technologies. This includes information management at the companies, which can be supported by providing market information.
Based on the experience of the German RETech Partnership (RETech) and the German Water Partnership (GWP), access to sound economic, legal, political, sales market-relevant and competitive information, which at the same time is tailored to the usability in SMEs, for a relevant target market as the basis for investment decisions is often difficult for individual companies. Particularly in the case of SMEs with limited human and financial resources, the availability of a solid and practical information base is indispensable in order to support the willingness to enter new markets. This is also a prerequisite for further export promotion measures to achieve the desired effects.
The initiators of these "country profiles" - RETech, GWP and the consulting firm eclareon GmbH - have already cooperated closely on this issue in 2014 and 2015 within the framework of a study by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy on the existing instrument of export promotion for an export initiative for environmental technologies. This led to the project idea for the creation and dissemination of common country profiles, and in spring 2017, for the first time and with the support of the export initiative Environmental technologies

• a common structure for such country profiles was developed,
• it was developed for a general, cross-industry part and the industry-specific part
• and the research, analysis and processing by experienced consulting firms in these countries was implemented.

In the year 2017, the country profiles for Ukraine, Serbia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Cuba were published and discussed at an industry event in the BMU. Since then, the country profiles have been available for free download on the websites of RETech and GWP. Over 1,000 copies have already been downloaded.
Due to this very positive response, the Export Initiative Environmental Technologies supports the creation and provision of six further country profiles. For the second series of publications, the countries Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Vietnam and Montenegro were selected as well as presented and discussed again at an sector event in the BMU.