The SME Development Cooperation
Human resources who can lead the industry are still
in short supply in many developing countries, and policies and systems to
foster SMEs are underdeveloped. These situations hinder the accumulation of
technical know-how in the production field as well as management know-how. The
lack of know-how has impeded the growth of SMEs and the expansion of new
businesses. To overcome these obstacles, in line with the progress of measures
for promoting SMEs of the governments of developing countries, formulation of
SME development policies and human resources development to implement the
policies are essential.
In a region like sub-Saharan Africa, where there is
no industry, support for entrepreneurship through regional community
development represented by the Campaign of One Village One Product or the Road
Station, which are more like micro enterprises rather than SMEs, creates local
jobs, promotes support for women entrepreneurs, and contributes to the
correction of regional income disparities.
At the same time, promotion of industrial technology
is an important task for developing countries in order to expand business
opportunities and improve competition through technological innovation.
Many developing countries work on the promotion of
various industrial technologies as a national responsibility and have
established official test facilities and laboratories for basic technologies;
however, securing and developing the human resources that will work at those
institutions remains to be done.
In the more developed countries, cooperation for
relatively high level technical research targeting national research institutes
is increasing. Through such cooperation, we
support building systems that can respond to local technical needs.
The presence of SMEs, which supply components and
parts, called supporting industries, is vital to foster comprehensive
industries such as automobile and electric appliance manufacturing. Since the
increased technical power of SMEs is very important for developing countries, we provide active support in this area.
Such support is expected to develop supporting
industries in developing countries, promote further overseas investment, and
consolidate leading corporations, thus leading to sustainable economic growth.
As a result, it is expected that overseas procurement of leading corporations
will increase, indirectly promoting overseas business opportunities, and at the
same time, helping supporting industries expand and employment opportunities in
developing countries increase.