UK universities invest in SME initiative

Universities in the Midland region are opening the doors of their laboratories to local hi-tech small and medium firms as part of a £20 million (R238 million) research programme into advanced materials, states the Birmingham Post.

Advantage West Midlands has invested more than £20 million in the Birmingham Science City Advanced Materials initiative to develop a range of new facilities and equipment at the University of Warwick and Birmingham. This in an effort to create new materials to meet challenges faced in the areas of health, engineering, energy and the environment.

The research programme will enable the region's universities to find the new materials that companies could be using in five years' time as well as providing simultaneous direct help to companies seeking to exploit the new materials available now.

The Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion (Osmep) is aiming for a 5% increase in the gross domestic product (GDP) of SMEs and more than 60 000 new businesses in 2010, says director Yuthasak Supasorn, reports the Bangkok Post.

Yuthasak said Osmep would invest 800 million baht (R178 million) in 2010 and at least one billion baht (R223 million) in 2011 in supporting and preparing small businesses to cope with the impact of the Asean Free Trade Area in 2010 and the Asean economic community, which is scheduled to be fully in place in 2015.

He expects the GDP of SMEs to rise by at least 5%, or 170 billion baht (R38 billion) as a result. Exports by SMEs are expected to grow by at least 8% from 2009, while 60 000 new SME operators are expected to be created.

The performance of SMEs last year was a success story, despite the country being hurt by effects of the global economic crisis, said Windu Matoka, Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) director for micro and small enterprises, according to The Post Zambia.

ZDA last year worked with a number of key institutions and stakeholders to improve the performance of small businesses.

Matoka named some of the programmes undertaken as the Business Development Services (BDS) Voucher Programme, Business Linkages Programme, a partnership programme of ZDA, the International Labour Organisation ILO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.