Connecting the Americas IDB extends a hand to SMEs Most people following events at the Americas Competitiveness Forum VIII, which ended on Friday, would have heard about the Inter American Development Bank’s (IDB’s) launch of its Connect Americas initiative in T&T. The programme has been operational for the past six months in other parts of Latin America but last Wednesday’s demonstration of the social-media platform at the Hyatt Regency marked its debut in the Caribbean, with T&T being the first English-speaking country in the region to benefit. Speaking with the Sunday Business Guardian on Tuesday, a day before the platform’s formal launch, IDB country representative, Michelle Cross Fenty said access to ConnectAmericas was one of three components of a US$18 million Global Services Loan the IDB lent T&T. “One of the things we tried to do with regard to T&T, is help the country transition to a post-hydrocarbon economy. We have a situation where the country is very reliant on oil and gas. All the economists in the world have explained that what you have to do is try to diversify the economy, so the central tenet of the country strategy for T&T is to allow it to put in loans that will help it to do that.” As part of this diversification thrust, ConnectAmericas which according to Cross Fenty is the second component of the loan, will provide critical help with “investment promotion and sector branding.” This is because ConnectAmericas provides a medium through which local companies can meet up with entities outside T&T, show their products and services and investment opportunities in the best light as well as how those firms could access business opportunities and assistance in participating countries. “Think of it as a big, global platform where you will be able to connect with anybody, all over the world,” said Cross Fenty. The site also features a number of Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs, which offer training on technical issues potential exporters will face, like tariffs, countervailing duties and commercial preferences. “When you are a small or medium enterprise, you don’t have many resources available. You say to yourself, you are doing really well making a particular product here in Trinidad but I don’t know the first thing about trying to get my product out of Trinidad. I don’t understand how export rules work; I don’t understand how to import things. There are a lot of things you will have to learn when you are trying to expand your business. The learning tool available on ConnectAmerica will be fantastic, because you’ll be able to do these online business courses and be able to take part on business simulators.” Beyond support in the virtual world, the IDB has plans to set up physical infrastructure. This is the first component of the loan and will be what Cross Fenty termed an ‘export hub’, to support the ConnectAmericas programme in this country. “They can actually go in and they will be able to receive information on export readiness for their company. They will be able to get training and access technological infrastructure for their businesses and there will be workspaces where they can network with other SMEs and they’ll be able to collaborate.” A building, located in Trincity, has already been sourced for this purpose. ConnectAmericas also proposes to assist with eliminating another headache of SMEs, that of finding the money for expansion outside of T&T. “One of the things we are going to be able to offer through ConnectAmericas is technical assistance programmes, which are basically grants. In addition, there will be loans. What is great is that a lot of them will be IDB-funded products.” One of these is trade finance facilitation programme which, Cross Fenty said, is a network of banks throughout the region that partner with the IDB. “The IDB will guarantee the transaction so the risk isn’t with the banks and it will also be able to issue stand-by letters of credit.” The third component of the IDB loan, meanwhile, is ensuring the appropriate policy and legislative instruments are set up to make this environment for small and medium enterprises work. The IDB country representative said a major focus of the loan was the enhancement of this country’s capability in ITES (information, technology enabled services). “Simply, by that we mean, when you talk about ITES, we are talking about a shift in our innovation, in the way business will be done. We need to make sure that the laws and the legislation that are in place will be up to par, so that they can actually accommodate the changes that you are going to experience as you make that shift toward innovation and technology services.” She said that T&T was chosen to pilot the ConnectAmericas programme in the Caribbean because there were a number of positive signs that it was on the road to greater innovation. “It was based on the readiness of the country. Looking at things like the competitiveness indices and across the board, I think that it represents that T&T is in a good position to take advantage of some of these tools out there and to use them in an intellectual and sophisticated way.” “In 2014, if you look at the Global Competitiveness Indices, T&T has moved up three places this year, it is 89 out of 144. That’s really good in that T&T is reversing a declining trend. This is an important point to mention because it means that the momentum is behind you, to move in this direction of innovation which is critical to diversification of your economy.” Cross Fenty also said it was good the government formed a Council for Competitiveness and Innovation. “What they’ve done there is set up conversation between private and public business leaders, so that they can work together to figure out what the country needs to do to keep this improvement going.” IDB consultant Francisco Estrazulas—on hand to explain some of the more technical aspects of the Web site—gave a list of some of the local partners who were either involved or promised to sign on to the ConnectAmericas initiative. “ExporTT was our main contact when we came in the mission to meet and start exploring local partnerships. I do not know the exact status of who has signed the agreement yet, but I can tell you that we met with TTMA, TTCSI, Namdevco, Nedco, the TTCIC.” Estrazulas said in the site’s six-month existence, it has registered 14,000 businesses in 56 countries. The site has also had 84,000 unique visitors. He said the rate of growth has picked up significantly since August, when he said visits quadrupled. De Souza said although the site was fully functional, visitors could expect to see continual upgrades to its features and offerings over the next year. Some ConnectAmericas features: • Allows users to set up a personal as well as company profile; • The site gives contextual recommendations e.g every time a user accesses the site, it provides eight recommendations to relevant companies and interest areas; • Hosts specific business communities by sector/industries; • Posts relevant industry events; • Functions as a “cashless exchange of value” by creating a space for members to promote goods, services and events, in exchange for telling others about ConnectAmericas; • Industry-relevant news created by an editorial team; • Trade Intelligence tools including the trade automated system. Run in tandem with ConnectAmericas partner the logistics company DHL the system provides trade documents and information not only for the exporter country, but for any country that the exporter may wish to do business with; • Access to InvestAmerica—the private sector arm of IDB, which provides information on private equity for firms, due-diligence services as well as allowing entities looking for financing to promote themselves to a pool of potential investors. Source:: Guardian Business The post Connecting the Americas IDB extends a hand to SMEs appeared first on Trinidad & Tobago Online. #trinidad
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 08:07:21 +0000
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