“a worldwide celebration of enterprise, which aims to unleash young people’s enterprising ideas and address some of society’s biggest issues, from poverty reduction through to climate change. More than 70 countries are currently signed up to run their very own versions of Enterprise Week, all coming under the banner of Global Entrepreneurship Week!”

The UK’s part of this, Enterprise Week, is promoted as “Make your Mark Week” which last year consisted of over 5,000 events involving more than 500,000 people. The campaign has completely embraced the use of the online media, with pretty much every online resource you can think of – blog, Twitter, media resources,  Flickr, You Tube and more. Hopefully the week will inspire some great business ideas for the future.

Lord Mandelson was on BBC Breakfast this morning promoting the event and there is a quote on the site that has been approved for use from the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform,

“Small and medium enterprises are the backbone of our economy, with 4.7 million businesses last year contributing more than 50 per cent to the UK’s turnover.

The Government is on the side of small and medium-sized businesses and understands that they are facing tough times ahead.

We are working to create the right conditions for British enterprise by removing barriers, creating opportunities and supporting events like Global Entrepreneurship Week to inspire tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.”

I agree wholeheartedly with the first statement, but as I have said in the past, the Government’s actions last year of increasing small companies corporation tax and capital gains tax on sales of small businesses, do not support the rest of this statement. Lets hope this statement indicates that we are about to see a major U-turn on these things in next week’s pre budget report so that the enthusiasm that this campaign generates is supported through the difficult times ahead.