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Thursday, February 19, 2004
Germany to give technical aid to Visayas small, medium firms
By Cherry T. Lim
THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is embarking on a project with the German government and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) to boost the capabilities of small and medium enterprises (SME) in the Visayas.
The program, called Small and Medium Enterprise Development for Sustainable Employment Program (Smedsep), which will run for three years starting this year, is funded by a grant from the German government through GTZ, according to DTI 7 Regional Director Asteria Caberte.
Smedsep was born out of a request by the DTI in 2001 for technical assistance from the German government in the field of private sector development, she said.
Sectors
The proponents will meet on March 8 to identify the industry sectors in Central, Eastern and Western Visayas that will benefit from the targeted assistance.
One or two sectors will be chosen per region.
“But we have already identified the pilot province as Cebu. Eventually, we will roll it out to the other provinces,” Caberte told Sun.Star.
The Smedsep program has five components. The first is the Enabling Business Environment/SME Policy component, a DTI-led effort to create an economic, administrative and regulatory framework conducive to business activities in the region.
For this component, the DTI will need to work in tandem with the local governments, Caberte said.
The second component, which is private sector led, is the Business Development Services component.
“Some SMEs don’t even realize they need business development services. Most think they just lack capital, but sometimes it may be the design, or marketing assistance or a financial plan that is lacking,” Caberte said.
The third component is the financial services component.
The fourth component, Tesda led, is the training component, which will make demand-driven training programs more accessible to the workforce.
Caberte said the fifth component was export or trade promotion, to be led by the DTI.
She revealed that apart from GTZ, the department is also looking at joining hands with the Canadian International Development Agency for other programs.
(February 19, 2004 issue)
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