Tra Vinh (VNA) – The management board of the small-and medium-sized enterprise development project in the Mekong Delta province ofTra Vinh (SME Tra Vinh) has revealed that it will spend 70 billion VND (3 million USD) to support provincial SMEs in 2019, including over 65 billion VNDfrom the Canadian government in non-refundable aid.
To Ngoc Binh, the project director, said that of the investment,more than 10 billion VND will be used to support startup activities, while over23 billion VND will be spent to assist the building of trademarks for majorproducts, promote production connectivity, and expand markets.
Additionally, nearly 22 billion VND will be invested inactivities to improve the business environment and enhance provincialcompetitiveness. The rest will be poured into communications and projectmanagement, said Binh.
In 2018, the SME Tra Vinh project disbursed nearly 28billion VND on activities supporting businesses, including developing SMEs inthe 2018-2020 period in association with activities related to gender, ethnicminorities and the environment; expanding markets and communications forcoconut products; facilitating startups; and the building, monitoring and evaluatingof plans to develop SMEs.
Through the activities, local SMEs have enhanced theirmanagement capacity and strengthened their connectivity with partners to expandtheir markets, while receiving support to realise ideas on developing keyproducts of the province.
Currently, Tra Vinh has about 2,200 businesses operating witha total investment of over 25,600 billion VND and a combined workforce of nearly90,000 hands.
To support the growth of firms, Global Affair Canada has fundedthe SME Tra Vinh project in the 2014-2020 period with a total investment of12.1 million CAD (8.17 million USD).
The objectives of the project include assisting the growthand improving the competitiveness of SMEs in the province, benefiting about 200enterprises and more than 194,000 locals in 22 rural areas. –VNA