We have implemented a policy of real support for small businesses near our facilities in France for 30 years now. Several years ago, we began assessing the effectiveness of this process at the international level. Our goals are to promote job creation and access to skills and expertise by supporting projects to start, expand or acquire businesses.

Steered by Total Regional Development, our initiatives comply with the following principles :

• collaboration with authorities, specialized organizations and our business and institutional partners.
• alignment with regional plans.
• integration into the subsidiary's community development strategy.

Our commitment is usually long-term, to create or save jobs in a wide range of sectors unrelated to our own businesses and operations.

In the last ten years, Total Regional Development has helped 1,000 businesses with loans totaling €70 million. Some 15,000 jobs have been created, saved or planned thanks to current loans.

We support Small and Medium-Sized businesses in three ways.

Loan recipients are mainly entrepreneurs, businesses in operation for less than five years, acquirers and companies in the first year following a buy-out.
Loans are interest-free and unsecured. Total Regional Development acts in accordance with two principles: partnering with local stakeholders that coach and support new entrepreneurs and providing financial assistance, picking up where banks leave off.

We leverage our presence in 130 countries, extensive knowledge of local stakeholders and real-world experience to help Small and Medium-Sized French businesses expand into international markets. In the last two years, nearly 500 companies have received coaching and support from Total Regional Development.



Our support takes different forms :

• Brokering contacts and sharing information. To help small businesses prospect export markets, our subsidiaries in those countries provide expertise and local contacts. In 2009 and 2010, we facilitated more than 100 contacts for small businesses.
• Arranging commercial prospecting missions, mostly in partnership with the national or regional organizations that promote international development for French companies. In 2009 and 2010, almost 300 businesses took part in prospecting missions supported by Total.
• Hosting student interns and co-op interns on behalf of small businesses, to facilitate their international prospecting. In 2009 and 2010, our subsidiaries hosted nearly 300 student interns and co-op interns.

We make Total's research and development potential available to entrepreneurs.
Our support includes advice from experts at Total or partner companies. We can also provide small businesses with high-tech equipment and other technical resources that they cannot easily access. We helped 140 businesses in 2009 and 2010.

Total signed France's Small Business Pact in April 2007. Implemented in late 2005 by OSEO, a French organization supporting small business innovation and growth, and the Comité Richelieu association of innovative small businesses, the pact is designed to facilitate relations between major corporations and innovative small businesses to spur the latter's growth.


Total is also a signatory of the International Small Business Export Piggyback Program [Pacte PME International], which we signed and launched at our headquarters on March 4, 2009.

Overseen and managed by the Comité Richelieu, the new initiative brings together large companies, small businesses and public authorities. It aims to encourage large exporters to "piggyback" smaller businesses.