OKINAWA, Japan ? Inter-American Development Bank President Enrique V. Iglesias and Peru’s Chamber of Commerce President Samuel Gleiser Katz today signed documents for a $491,000 grant from the IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund to assist small and medium-sized enterprises in improving their ability to compete in electronic procurement for government contracts.
“The importance of small and medium-sized businesses for economic growth and employment in Latin America is widely recognized, and the achievement of greater competitiveness is the key to economic growth and job creation,” said Iglesias. “It is important that the SMEs participate in all aspects of the national economy”.
Thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises will benefit from the program, which will provide training, technical assistance and information services to help them to become more competitive and access new markets. Additional benefits of the project will be improved e-procurement among the participating countries, diversification of suppliers, lower supply costs to the governments and greater export activity and integration among the countries of the region.
The National chamber of Commerce of Chile and the Assembly of Small and Medium Enterprises of Argentina will carry out a parallel program with MIF resources under the framework of the same program.
A common operating platform will be developed among the participating countries to enable them to share experiences and mechanisms to better compete in the e-procurement market. The MIF project complements activities of the Inter-American Development Bank in support of e-procurement in several countries of the region in coordination with the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. The project was developed in conjunction with the IDB’s Information Technology for Development Division.