A 3-day training course on Income Generation for 13 provincial CCI was organized from the 5th to the 7th of May 2009 for 35 participants at the meeting room of the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LNCCI).  The training was organized by LNCCI under support of the Lao-GTZ Human Resource Development for Market Economy (HRD-ME) and conducted by the team of EDC.  The training focused on building capacity of the chambers’ staff in identifying and organizing training program that was relevant to the needs of the SMEs in their respective provinces.

There were two instances that EDC has performed charity works. The first happened in November, 2008. EDC staff have collected and donated used clothes and some notebooks for poor school children and villagers from three remote villages of Nalae district in Luang Namtha provinces. The three villages, namely Mok Chord, Mok Prad and Phouthone Mok, are situated in a very high mountain. It is always very cold during winter time. In fact, temperature can go far down as 0 (and sometimes, even -1 degree). The poor children and some villagers have no clothes (not talking about warm clothes) to wear. They could only survive by staying in the kitchen around the fire place. Even used or second hand clothes can help the villagers during the harsh winter.

Then in January 2009, EDC’s team of consultants worked with an with HIV/AIDS programme. In this mission, EDC discussed, worked and observed PLHIV (people living with HIV). It is not so easy to lived with such a debilitating disease. Despite this however, EDC knows that there is still optimism and a ray of hope in most of the PLHIV. They gave two packages of milk for each family. EDC hopes that the small contibution can help them in very small way to go through the physical and emotional pain.

From now onwards, EDC will do an annual charity event. They would like to invite other institutions, projects and SMEs to join if they so desire. EDC also plans to work with the Laos Red Cross in collecting donations and used clothes for the villagers. Do contact us if you are interested in charity works.

EDC has been commissioned by the SME Promotion and Development Office (SMEPDO) and the Lao-German Human Resource Development in Market Economy Programme (HRD-ME) to draft the first ever SME Annual Report (White Paper) in Lao PDR. The paper follows the issuance of the Prime Minister’s Decree No. 43/PM dated 20 April 2004, the SME Promotion and Development Committee (SMEPDC) and its secretariat, as well as the SMEPDO. These institutions have been mandated to to coordinate implementation of the policies of the government on SME promotion and development.

The paper will use the White Papers in Thailand and Japan as guides, the draft report assembled all the available statistics and survey data in Laos today. It provided an overview of the of the situation and development trends of the SMEs during the year. Both EDC and SMEPDO hope that the paper will provide decision makers and the general public with vital information that can broaden the understanding of the role of SMEs in the national economy, specially in terms of employment, income generation and poverty alleviation. The report uses existing surveys and studies as main sources. It complemented these secondary sources with actual surveys and interviews of the existing and future SME- and private sector promotion agncues activities of several donor agencies. Among others, it featured interviews with GTZ, EU, ADB, IFC, ILO and the World Bank-International Finance Company.

The EDC’s consultant team consisted of Thiphaphone, Dr. Vivath and Phoukong are working on the SME Annual Report 2008. EDC has officially submitted the draft of the white paper to SMEPDO last month.

In a recent meeting, the digital media has started to itemize its web-based and internet engineering services for the SMEs and institutional clients. Visay reported to the EDC partners that EDC Media Service will facilitate the dissemination of technical information, case studies, research results, statistics, and other important EDC announcements and events. As planned, the site will be hosted by a UK based server and will employ the latest web 2.0 technologies (e.g., WordPress, Moodle, and Joomla) in spinning highly interactive and content driven sites. Digital media will team up with K+e Ventures, Asia in the Philippines to insure continuous flow of content and media elements.

The web services will include: Website set-up and hosting (up to 12 months at a time), installation (e.g.1. Word Press setup, theme selection and installation, banner design, logo and customization, first four articles with content management training, widgets as well as plugin consultation and installation). EDC is now working on Creative Common license, Adsense and merchant account for the installation of e-Commerce plugins.

One of the most important functions of the unit is capacity building. For every web installation, EDC hopes to train and develop young IT paraprofessionals who will work within the SME client or NGOs, development projects and government installations in both rural and urban internet serviced areas. EDC will develop two types of IT paraprofessionals: web administrators and web content makers. With this unit, EDC hopes to expand the possibilities for the Lao private sector to participate in the expanding internet opportunities worldwide.