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| Danish Ambassador to Vietnam John Nielsen announces the Business Sector Program whose main goal is to support Vietnamese SMEs in the private sector - Photo: Quoc Hung |
The program will have a total budget of 123 million Danish Kroner, or about VND422 billion, and last for three years from 2011, Danish Ambassador to Vietnam John Nielsen told reporters at a press briefing in HCMC on Friday.
The program is now subject to the appraisal of the Vietnamese Government. The government-to-government agreement between the two countries is expected to be signed in December in order to allow for the program to begin in January 2011, according to the Danish embassy in a statement released at the meeting.
With the objective of strengthening the competitiveness of Vietnamese growth- and export-oriented enterprises and creating decent jobs, the ambition of the program is to help create conditions for continued strong private sector-led growth.
In particular, the program aims at strengthening innovation and adaptation of new technologies in SMEs known as component 1, supporting measures to fortify the national system of occupational safety and health in component 2, and enhancing the understanding of the SME sector through economic research in component 3.
For Component 1, the program will spend 63 million Danish Kroner to support 40 to 50 projects with an average funding of VND4 billion per project for enterprises in seven provinces, the ambassador said.
The direct target group is Vietnamese non-public enterprises providing services to small businesses or household enterprises or farmers operating in the export-oriented value chains, while the indirect target group includes small businesses, household enterprises and farmers.
The Global Competitiveness Facility (GCF) funding is expected to reduce the financial risk for Vietnamese non-public enterprises and organizations embarking on offering business services, new technologies, access to new export markets and piloting new business models.
The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs; the Central Institute of Economic Management and the Global Competitiveness Facility continue to be key partners of the program.
The support to improve labor protection under Component 2 will be implemented by the labor ministry through sector budget support to the National Program on Labor Protection and Occupational Safety and Health 2011-2015.
Ambassador John Nielsen says in the statement that “the strong economic performance of Vietnam over the past two decades reflects the increasing strength and buoyancy of the private sector, which is mainly made up of SMEs. The critical challenges of the next decade for Vietnam are to improve the quality of production, achieve and sustain global competitiveness and at the same time make sure that the poor are being taken along the growth path.”
