Projects

Macro level: Advice to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MEDT), the State Committee for State Investment and State Property, and the Ministry of Agriculture in the introduction and implementation of methods and instruments for rural economic development focused on SMEs business development services; Support to public-private dialogue. Meso level: Provide strategic and methodological advice to organizations, associations and private service providers in the development of demand-oriented services; Provide trainings and technical advice in organizational development, including management and legal structure; Trainings in business planning, business management, marketing, finance and controlling for SMEs; Training representatives of business associations in organizational development and for developing advocacy skills; Support selected organizations operating in SME and economic development sector in the improvement and further development of their services; Introduction and further development of Start-up support measures; Provide technical advice to the association Quality Management Centre (QMC - MIS) of local consultants working for quality management and setting up of quality assurance systems, covering all management issues and business development services for the marketing for the food industry;

Training local consultants on other food quality standards such as ISO 22.000; Strengthening selected food value chains through introducing of food safety standards, marketing of processed fruit and vegetable products as starting point for advising the upstream management of processing companies; Further support to the certification system for organic agriculture; Technical advice to the TAG agricultural machinery services (TAMS) to improve management and services. Micro level: The fruit and vegetable sector is being supporting according to the value chain approach; Train individual food processing companies to prepare reasonable business plans and to link to credit sources; Strengthening of the cotton value chain, apart from support to increase yields also to improve fibre quality through improved seeds and harvesting methods; Provide advice on the better cotton initiatives (BCI) and further development on the achievment of organic agriculture standards; Supporting networking of food processing companies, particularly in the area of fruit and vegetable processing. This is regarded as needed to meet export requirements in terms of volume and quality; Fruit and vegetable processing companies are intensively advised in branding and promoting their food products.