(VOVWORLD) - Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are considered a driving force for growth, a source of jobs and rising income for workers. In recent years SMEs have been contributing to economic growth in Hanoi’s Hoai Duc district with the help of an organization called ‘Youth With A Mission’.
A meeting of the project’s management board.
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Hoai Duc has nearly 3,000 enterprises and more than 10,000 households involved in business activities. In recent years, local authorities have been working with “Youth With A Mission”, an international non-profit organization, on an SME development project that provides SMEs and household businesses with information about regulations and domestic and foreign markets so they can choose a sustainable development direction.
The project has created jobs and increased incomes in Hoai Duc, helping the district restructure its economy toward more industry, service, and trade.
 Do Duc Trung, Deputy Chairman of Hoai Duc’s People’s Committee. |
Do Duc Trung, Deputy Chairman of Hoai Duc’s People’s Committee, said: "The district’s general policy is to minimize difficulties for businesses. But the biggest problem is insufficient management, operations, and organizational know-how to turn out products that meet market requirements, can compete with foreign products, don’t harm the environment, and comply with food safety regulations.”
 A training course sponsored by ‘Youth With A Mission’ . |
Launched in 2009, the "Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Development" project in Hoai Duc district has attracted business owners who, through training courses organized by “Youth With A Mission”, have learned enough about production scaling and markets to improve their competitiveness in the market economy.
Chu Van Bang, Chairman of the GB Garment Joint Stock Company, said: "We have received technical support to help us standardize our management systems. The support saw an immediate quantitative effect in our inventory and qualitative effect in our employees.”
Through the support of “Youth With A Mission”, whose members are themselves successful business owners, businessmen in Hoai Duc have become more professional in managing their businesses.
 Ms. Roslyn Jackson, Director of “Youth With A Mission” in Vietnam. |
Roslyn Jackson, Director of “Youth With A Mission” in Vietnam, told VOV: “So we have some very successful businesses who provide good opportunities for local workers. We see environment for workers being improved a lot where the conditions are much safer for workers. What I see now is companies now are in a much better position to walk to the future particularly as VN is undergoing this change and shift from agriculture to more industrial companies.”
The training courses have taught Hoai Duc business owners to combine profits and social goals, their workplace environment and consumer interests.
Ms. Roslyn Jackson added: “I think one of the succeed factors of this project is the fact that we haven't just got the owners in here and train them, we have really tried to support them, particularly environment to bring change. I would like to see more of these companies with the successful really giving back into the community, we are starting to see that in Hoai Duc. And some of the companies have really achieved, and now giving back and helping poor students and helping people in difficult circumstances in their area.”