Support to Asia Africa Private Sector Cooperation and Development
Project Brief
|
I. Objectives and expected outputs
- Confidence building between Asian and African private sector through workshops and exchange tours
- Information sharing and management including data collection, dissemination and market opportunities, products, services, raw materials, finance and credit opportunities, investment incentives
- Financing mechanisms of transactions and production facilities
- Entrepreneur ship development, enhancement of material skills, quality control efficient production, and standardization of products.
II. Activities
The programme will be organized in two sections:
Section A:
Section A:
- Brainstorming and orientation workshops (2 days):
This workshop will be organized in Philippines or Thailand. It will focus on the following three subjects:
(a) Low interest loan mechanisms and the Asian experience in this area
(b) Linkages between large industries and SME's for increased trade and marketing for SME's
(c) System for improving technology of SMEs
Workshop Agenda
- Two days workshop including dialogue with private sector representatives and practitioners of the host country followed by field visit.
- Exchange visits to Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand or Philippines (12 days)
Four days per country. The visits will focus on observing production lines and marketing arrangements in the following sectors:
- Food industries
- Textiles and garments
- Tourism and other service industries
- Medicinal/traditional/herbal products
- Resource based on industries
- Agriculture and fisheries
- Medical disposable products
- Building and construction materials
- Vehicles/Automotive industries and spare parts
- Handicrafts
- Consolidation of workshop in India (3 days)
This workshop will last 4 days. Its agenda will focus on:
- Reviewing the outcome of exchange tours
- Reviewing India's experience of SME development
- Dialogue with the Indian Private Sector, including visits to local enterprises in the above mentioned sectors.
Africa: 15 countries (3 participants per country with 50% participation cot sharing.) Participants should be from Chambers of Commerce and Private Sector Practitioners
Section B
Workshop in inter-and intra-Regional Cooperation for SME development and establishment of information sharing mechanism between and among Asian and African Countries.
The Workshop will be organised in South Africa for 3 days. Participants from African and Asian countries together with interested donors will discuss and formulate recommendations on ways, means and incentives for the SME development, focusing on increased opportunities for trade and investment, and come up with concrete proposal for Asia/Africa cooperation for SME development. A possibility of establishing "SEM-NET Africa" will be discussed. Subsequently, the Working Group meeting will be organized to prepare the Work Plan of the above Network mechanism in collaboration with TECHNONET-ASIA. (MASSCORP of Malaysia also has a databased set up for and distributed among G-15 countries)
Topics for the Discussions
a. SME development:Ways, Means and Incentives-Can this be incorporated?
b. Inter-and Intra-regional cooperation between African and Asian countries
Participants
The workshop will be participated by representatives of 27 African and 10 Asian countries engaged in promoting Small and Medium Enterprise development in the public agencies and private associations, 5 donor agencies and 8 international organizations.
West/Southern Africa (8 countries)
Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, Cote d'lvoire, China, Benin
East/Souther Africa (16 countries)
Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar
North Africa (3 countries)
Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco
Asia (10 countries)
Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Japan
Donor organisations
IDRC, CIDA, SIDA, JICA, GTZ
International Organisations
AfDB, ECA, ICC, TTECHNONET ASIA, UNIDO, UNCTAD, UNDP, WORLD BANK
Expected Outputs
As a result of the workshop, the following outputs are produced:
1) Enhanced knowledge of incentives for SME development
2) Increased potential trade and investment opportunities for SMEs
3) Recommendations on intra-and inter-regional cooperation between Africa and Asia for SME development
4) Work Plan for the implementation of the Network Mechanism
Feature in line with the agenda for Action
Private sector development (Asia-Africa cooperation)
Section C:
Parallel event to G77 Chamber of Commerce and Industry General Assembly and International Exhibition (5-11 April 1999)
The above General Assembly will be organized in Kampala, Uganda. The main theme of the General Assembly is bridging the information gap for better trade within G-77 CC1 in Africa and Asia countries, particularly among business and private sector leaders. It is expected that 2,000 participants will gather for the General Assembly and International Exhibition. UNDP will take the opportunity of the presence of Asian and African business leaders to organize a workshop as a parallel event in collaboration with the Government of Uganda and the organizers of the above General Assembly.
That workshop of 1-2 days will include discussion on how to promote trade and investment between Asia and Africa and panel discussions by resource persons and will come up with recommendations on how to improve information sharing on markets, services production and business opportunities leading to joint ventures. Furthermore, the invitation to the above activities in Section A will be announced and extended at this event.
The workshop will serve as preparation process for the Asia-Africa Business Forum to be organized as a follow up to TICAD II by the Government of Japan and UN/UNDP.
(End)
Back to Index