IFC-Washington D.C.:
Corrie Shanahan
Phone: (202) 473-2258
Fax:  (202) 974-4384
E-mail:  cshanahan@ifc.org

IFC-Ho Chi Minh:
Nguyen Thi Kim Vui
Phone:  (84 8) 823 5266
Mobile:  (0908) 357 887
Fax:  (84 8) 823 5271
E-mail:  NVui@ifc.org


Ho Chi Minh City, December 13, 2002— The Mekong Project Development Facility managed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is launching a major new business training initiative. Called Business Edge, the program aims to help local entrepreneurs in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos gain new skills for growing their companies. It targets busy small business owners who can rarely take time to leave the office for classroom-based education, offering them more choices and wider access to training in modern management skills.

“The program aims to remove barriers to learning, and make it more accessible to the local SMEs,” said Dr. Mario Fischel, MPDF’s general manager.

Business Edge builds on a successful pilot —“Teach Yourself Business Management”— launched last year in cooperation with the Youth Publishing House of Ho Chi Minh City. It led to the sale of more than 36,000 copies of Vietnamese-language workbooks on marketing and human resources management for SMEs in just over half a year. Two leading national newspapers have had the workbooks on their bestseller lists since they were published, and an additional 6,000 Khmer-language volumes have been sold in Cambodia as well.

In response to this strong demand, MPDF has now developed ways for the program to work on a larger scale. A resource center has been established in Ho Chi Minh City to create a variety of training products: flexible learning workbooks in different management skill areas, CD-ROMs with tools of interest to SMEs, and short seminars and training classes. The package offers user-friendly content such as “how-to” articles, management tools, and software and business forms to help both individuals and businesses develop and grow profitably. These have been developed in cooperation with The SME Toolkit, a project of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Department of the World Bank Group supported by funding from Japan.

With a view to its sustainable and long-term development, the Business Edge brand name has been selected and registered for the program. Twenty new titles are currently being produced in three new topic areas: finance and accounting, personal productivity skills, and production and operations. Four out of these 20 titles will be released after the launch of Business Edge and the remaining 16 will be released in the middle of 2003.

While on an official visit to Vietnam, Farida Khambata, vice president of portfolio and risk management at the International Finance Corporation took time to attend the Business Edge launch ceremony. “We are pleased to see that with MPDF’s expanded commitment in this program, the local SMEs will benefit from more learning opportunities for the sake of their sustainable growth,” Khambata said.

MPDF, established in 1997, is a multi-donor program of the Asian Development Bank, Australia, Canada, Finland, IFC, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Managed by IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, MPDF works to support private sector development in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

IFC’s mission is to promote sustainable private sector investment in developing countries, helping to reduce poverty and improve people’s lives. IFC finances private sector investments in the developing world, mobilizes capital in the international financial markets, and provides technical assistance and advice to governments and businesses. Since its founding in 1956 through FY02, IFC has committed more than $34 billion of its own funds and arranged $21 billion in syndications for 2,825 companies in 140 developing countries. IFC’s worldwide committed portfolio as of FY02 was $15.1 billion for its own account and $6.5 billion held for participants in loan syndications.