It was announced on Thursday that the National MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) Policy would be presented to Erwin Contreras, Belize's Minister for Economic Development, Commerce and Industry, and Consumer Protection.
According to a government statement, the Policy is "a simple articulation aimed at innovation as well as creativity to enhance the growth and competitiveness of MSMEs in Belize".
It is in line with the government’s goal of national development through employment generation, poverty reduction and balanced regional growth in Belize.
The Commonwealth Secretariat, under the auspices of the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC), has been working with BELTRAIDE since mid-2005 to enhance the competitiveness of the country’s (MSME’s).
The assistance initially started under the Pan Caribbean SME-ICT Competitiveness Development Programme, a regional CFTC initiative developed to enhance the competitiveness of the Commonwealth Caribbean countries in the MSME and ICT sectors.
Under this initiative, which ran between 2005-07, Belize benefited through specialised capacity building training and development, which included assistance with networking and establishing a database for MSMEs.
Since 2007, CFTC has been assisting BELTRAIDE to develop and implement a National MSME Policy, besides developing a customized Economic Benchmarking tool for MSMEs.
This tool will be software based. It will assist in gauging the performance of MSMEs in Belize and identify how they can enhance their levels of productivity and thereby their competitiveness.
According to Melanie Gideon, Director of SME Capacity Building & Development:
“In a WTO driven world, the future competitiveness of the Belizean economy and its MSMEs are challenged by the erosion of trade preferences and the emergence of other low-cost competitors."
"According to (the) World Bank, in the global context, the core problem is that productivity is not increasing fast enough to keep pace with eroding competitiveness. We are very grateful to the Commonwealth Secretariat for working with us and providing this timely assistance.”
Ram Venuprasad, CFTC’s Enterprise Development Adviser, emphasized that the organization is committed to assisting with building sustainable operating capacity among MSMEs - including their support institutions like BELTRAIDE - in Belize to enhance their competitiveness.
This includes the training of around 10 lead network facilitators, in addition to the implementation of a MSME Database and Economic Productivity Benchmarking Tool for MSMEs.
He further explained that the National MSME Policy, which follows on from an earlier Strategy developed, was aimed at promoting an enabling environment and enhancing the competitiveness of the MSME sector.
In addition to these, CFTC is also providing BELTRAIDE with international training programme experience by facilitating its participation at the Commonwealth-India Small Business Competitiveness Development Programmes.
These programmes, conducted by CFTC in collaboration with the Government of India and their institutions, are aimed at building capacity and assisting with South-South collaboration in the field of MSME development.
The overall budget of CFTC’s assistance to Belize’s MSME sector is about BZ$450,000.
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