Assistance to boost SME growth
Assistance to boost SME growth
A new grant programme is set to ease pressures on struggling Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) operators in Laos.
The Business Assistance Facility (BAF), an initiative of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, was launched yesterday in Vientiane and aims to assist Lao private sector manufacturers and enterprises to grow through planned marketing development.
Department of SME Promotion's Director General, Mr Soutchay Sisouvong, said currently many SME operators require assistance for business expansion and to integrate with the international and Asean Economic Community by 2015.
Grants under the BAF are available to privately owned Lao producers of goods and service such as tourism, natural products, agri-business, furniture and coffee and Lao business associations such as trade associations and chambers of commerce.
Activities assisted are export expansion, diversification into new markets and new products, market research, trade fair participation, management information systems, production and quality control improvements and advertising and packaging, he said .
Under an agreed BAF grant, 50 percent of agreed costs is reimbursement after the BAF recipient has paid the full activity cost and submitted proof of completion and payment. Grants for each company or group of companies may not exceed a cumulative maximum of US$200,000.
For approved business associations, the grant can be up to 75 percent of agreed costs and no single association may receive more than US$40,000 in BAF grants.
Eligible costs are airfares and travel expenses, consultancy fees, training costs and materials, trade fair space rental and construction, catalogues and brochures and webpage design.
Mr Soutchay said the BAF does not support building or construction costs, equipment costs, working capital, isolated activities not connected to an overall agreed marketing plan or activities already completed.
The BAF is a component of the diversification and competitiveness sector of the Second Trade Development Facility Project (TDF-2) a multi-donor trust fund established to support the implementation of the government's trade and integration priorities.
The launch ceremony of the BAF was attended by the Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mr Siewsavad Savaengseuksa.
vientiane times
