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signing ceremony

On December 19th, 2019, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed a Record of Discussions (R/D) with the Government of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam in Hanoi for the Project for SME Promotion and Industrial Development as a technical cooperation project.

In Vietnam, polarization between big companies and SMEs is progressing. SMEs play a big role in the economy - 98% of enterprises by numbers, 63% of employment, and 45% of GDP – but only 21% of enterprises are involved in exportation, while FDIs dominate 70% of all exports of the country. In light of the above, the Vietnamese Government has announced new policy targets to increase the local procurement ratio (Footnote) to 40% - which is roughly the ratio of other major ASEAN countries - by 2030, up from the current 30% in Vietnam.

The Project aims to strengthen the capacity of agencies promoting SMEs and to develop the supporting industries, by improving the supporting mechanisms of public and private agencies and promoting linkages between the local enterprises and FDIs in the target areas. This will contribute to the expansion of industrial clusters and value chains, which is one of the pillars of the SME law enacted in 2018. The Project will contribute to the achievement of SDGs Goals 8, 9, and 17.

Details of the Project are provided bellow.

[Basic project information]

Country	The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam
Project title	Project for SME Promotion and Industrial Development
Planned implementation period	April 2020 ~ March 2023 (36 months)
Executing agency	Agency for Enterprise Development (AED) under Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) of Vietnam
Target region	Hanoi City and surrounding provinces, Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding provinces
Specific project details (provisional)	-Improvement of the SME website portal and expansion of the linkage promoting function -Technical advice to enterprises which have high potential to join the global value chain -Training public and private SME support consultants -Promoting linkages between local enterprises and FDIs – including Japanese FDIs in Vietnam (via events, etc.)