‘Small Package Exporter Champions (SPEC)’ Program launched in Cambodia

On 28^th June 2022, the ‘Small Package Exporter Champions (SPEC)’ Program, initiated under the Workstream 2: e-Trade Portal Development and Promotion of the SeT4SME Project was launched by Swisscontact in collaboration with Khmer Enterprise, European Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia and the Cambodian Women Entrepreneurs Association. The event saw 77 attendants representing 33 SMEs, and 10 potential mentors.

The SPEC program aims to help Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Women Owned Businesses (WOBs) looking to ship small package consignment internationally and drive their export growth. The program aims to establish a certificate system for small package exporter champions (SPEC) among MSMEs.

As an initiator of the program under SeT4SME Project, Swisscontact will carry out the piloting of the SPEC program, however, it will be implemented under the co-financing of Swisscontact and Khmer Enterprise, in partnership with EuroCham Cambodia and Cambodia Women Entrepreneurs Association (CWEA). The implementation consists of 3 phases. 

1. Phase 1 consists of two workshops for invited SPEC candidates. The 1^st workshop will be an introduction and networking event, while the 2^nd workshop will be a training event. MSMEs who fulfill the qualifications after the workshop against the set criteria will be Silver SPEC Certified.
2. Phase 2 of the program consists of mentoring support to the silver SPEC certified MSMEs for three months. MSMEs who attain success during the mentorship period against certain selectivity criteria (for example, successful exports to certain markets during the 3-month mentorship etc.) shall be presented with Gold SPEC Certificate. This phase also features a pitch and prizing, whereby there will be an awards ceremony for successful graduates to pitch and showcase their export successes. Gold SPEC MSMEs will give a 5-minute presentation, and there will be cash prizes for the top 3 ($1,500, $1,000, $500 respectively).
3. Finally, Phase 3 will be a strategic planning workshop that will include an orientation of the certification system to interested MSMEs and other market actors.

The workshop included a very interesting panel discussion that was moderated by Mr. Thomas Hesketh, Deputy Director of Eurocham. The panelists’ included Ms. Has Doungleakhana, Deputy Director General of Cambodia Post, Mrs. Bunnak Norm, Director of Villageworks, Ms. Monika Nowaczyk, BeeBee & Bongo, Cambodia Knits, Exporting SME / Potential Mentor, Mr. Sven Callebaut, International Trade Advisor, MoC, Director, TradeWorthy Ltd and Mr. Kha SOK, Workstream Leader of SeT4SME where they delved into the pressing capacity gaps for SMEs, the competitiveness, practical experiences on small package exports etc. 

The event concluded with a group discussion on various topics including SME Export Challenges, Small Package Export Use Cases/Challenges and Opportunities, Ideal Mentor and Mentor Qualities for Export Promotion and Topics for Trainings to Improve Capacity. The results from these discussions will be incorporated into the agenda of the training workshop that will be organized in July/August.

Through the SPEC program, the project expects to establish at least 10 Silver SPEC certified MSMEs and 5 Gold SPEC certified MSMEs. Following the pilot, an annual event for SPEC interested MSMEs is being planned, along with the development of ‘training tool kits’ for future capacity support to exporting MSMEs.

SPEC launching workshop was covered by the following media:

• SPEC programme initiated to increase MSME exports | Khmer Times