1. National Workshop on “SME cluster Development and Export Consortia Formation” in Viet nam Nguyen Minh Hien-VCCI

2. General Information  VCCI has organized the national workshop on “SME cluster development and Export Consortia Formation” in Bat Trang Ceramics Village, Hanoi, Vietnam on 4 and 5 October 2012.  This workshop is a coherence of VCCI’s project on “Support to the Development and Management of industrial clusters” and a part of the three-year project on “Capacity Building for the Integration of CLMV Economies into ASEAN Economic Community” implemented by Mekong Institute being funded under the New Zealand Aid Programme.

4. Workshop Objectives  SMEs that are exporting or having plan to join global market with the necessary knowledge and skills to develop SME cluster and promote export via export consortia formation.  To assess the challenges of AEC;  To realise the importance of integration of SMEs in the context of AEC 2015;  To gain knowledge on concepts and principles of SME cluster;  To develop skills in diagnosing cluster and its key features, cluster actors and their roles;  To recognize opportunities and prioritizing key sectors for cluster development  To understand steps of cluster development and cluster functions;  To gain knowledge about formation of export consortia;  To understand the process of the registration for an export consortium;  To be able to develop an action plan to form and operate 2 export consortia.

5. Participants of workshop  There were 32 participants from Bat Trang traditional porcelain and ceramics production and trading companies and households.

6. Bat Trang Village  Bat Trang is a village in North Vietnam about 13 kilometers south east of hanoi, on the Red river. It has been famous for its ceramics for a thousand year, particularly dinnerware and ornamental ware. The Bat Trang producers export ceramic goods annually to the value of over $40 million.

8. Contents of workshop  The workshop was conducted over two days( 04-05 October 2012), and included lectures, Q & A, and group discussions, which were divided into three modules.

9. Module I: SMEs and Cluster development  AEC challenges on SME development  AEC framework and its implication  AEC challenges on SME development in CLMV countries  Integration of regional SME Development in the AEC framework  National case study  Developing SME Cluster  Concepts and principles of SMEs cluster  Tools and approaches for developing SME cluster  Importance of SME cluster development  Value chain analysis to identify key value chain actors  Case study of cluster development and its operation on SME clusters in Asia, with the case of cluster development in Vietnam

10. Module 2: Export Consortia formation  Principles of export consortia  What is an export consortium?  Overview to different types of export consortia  Framework of export consortia  Benefits of export consortia  Creating an export consortium  Steps involved in consortium creation process  Services provided by export consortia  Examples of SME/Export consortia  Steps for registration as export company  Documentation required for registering an export company

11. Module 3: Coaching to form export consortia  All participants were guided to prepare their action plans to form an export consortium.

12. Introduction part  Overview of the project “Capacity Building for the Integration of CLMV Economies into ASEAN Economic Community”, the objectives, expected outcome, agenda and resource persons of the workshop.  Participants introduced themselves and their expectations.  The pre-training questionnaires that include questions on understanding the knowledge of participants on the topics of the workshop have been distributed to all participants.  Take a photo for memory.

13. Coaching participants to develop action plan  Instructed the participants how to develop action plans to form consortia.  All participants were divided into 2 groups to discuss and develop their action plans.  Presented action plans.  Discussing these action plans have revised by both groups after taking consideration of all contributed comments.

14. Workshop Evaluation  Pre- and post-assessment sheets have been distributed to each participant at the beginning of the workshop to learn the level of participants’ awareness, knowledge and/or skill on each of the modules of the workshop before and after participating in this national workshop.  All 32 participants have filled in the pre- and post- assessment sheets.

15. Workshop Evaluation(cont’)  In pre and post assessment sheets, at the end of the workshop, the participants filled in a simple multiple choice evaluation form. This consisted of the following 10 following questions:  How was the knowledge provided by this workshop?  How useful was the workshop?  How practical was the workshop?  How do you rate the chances for raising questions?  How interesting were the sessions?

16. Workshop Evaluation(cont’)  How do you rate the exercise of developing action plan  How were the hand-outs?  How would you rate the whole program on a scale from 1 (worst) to 10 (best)?  Have you ever participated in VCCI’s training programmes?  Other comments  In general, it shows clearly that the national workshop has provided useful knowledge to the participants and most of them appreciate this workshop. It is also consistent to the results of above pre-and post- assessment analysis.

17. Action Plan  All participants showed their interest in taking action to form an export consortium.  2 Export consortia have been formed after the workshop.That is : Hai Nguyet and Quang Vinh company.

18. Conclusion  The workshop focused on keys topics such as SME cluster development, export consortia formation etc. These topics were delivered with the clear explanation on the benefits and steps of working together so as to maintain SMEs’ competitiveness and to increase their productivities as well as market penetration, especially in the context of custom and non-custom barriers are removed and countries in the region get connected.  The workshop had drawn the attention and interests from the participants to further joint the next stage of the program. The participants committed to develop action plans to form SME cluster and export consortia as well as attend the upcoming forum for buyers and investors organized by Mekong institute in early 2013.

19. Recommendation  Recommendations toward the end of the workshop were formulated for the improvement of future activities as follows:  More similar workshop should be organized for other sectors;  More activities of networking Vietnam’s clusters and other ASEAN clusters;  More activities that aim to promote export should be organized.

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