Consensus on approach to micro-enterprise development lacking -
Fontgalland
by Ramani Kangaraarachchi
The road map for re-building the coastal economy is not yet in place
even six months after the tsunami due to the lack of national consensus
on the approach to development of micro enterprises said Guy de
Fontgalland, President, Aquinas South Asian Regional Institute of
Management (ASARIM), at the Pan Asia Forum on Capacity Building for
Microfinance in Crisis Situations held in Colombo recently.
He said that Corporate Linkage Programs (CLP) to Micro enterprises
through Micro finance is a fast tracking recovery strategy and ASARIM is
striving towards adoption of a national approach for economic
regeneration of the tsunami affected coastal belt of Sri Lanka.
He said that CLP is about linking medium and bigger enterprises to
the micro and small enterprises in a sustainable partnership arrangement
for production, transport and marketing. It is a formalised arrangement
between a small supplier and manufacturer to supply certain goods or
services to a bigger and better established business, on a pre- agreed
quality, quantity and time frame. There are many advantages for the
bigger enterprises in developing CPL with a number of smaller
enterprises.
Outsourcing for production or service reduces company's cost of
infrastructure for manufacturing, reduces pay roll and residual costs of
employing labour and management, allows expansion of business without
direct investment on manufacturing or service facilities, are some of
them.
He pointed out that in the post tsunami reconstruction and
re-development program, there are a number of micro and small businesses
which could be started and linked to bigger companies. |