Middle East & North Africa development of smes exports through virtual market places

Partnership Arrangements: Virtual Market Places companies

The project envisages awarding certain SMEs premium accounts in a limited number of VMPs. It also envisages the access to data regarding the dynamics of SMEs per sector and country within VMPs. Therefore, the WB and RIA have engaged in dialogue with some VMPs to engage them throughout the process and obtain some partial sponsorship of the premium accounts for SMEs with high export potential.

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   Operations Manual
   

The Operations Manual of the project describes the guidelines for implementing project components and has been adopted by ITC and will be adopted by the PIUs once they are created. The OM specifies guidelines for: (i) roles and responsibilities of ITC and the PIU, including supervision and reporting arrangements; (ii) role of the Oversight Committee (iii) procurement; (iv) financial management: and (v) project monitoring and evaluation.

1^ See Annex II.

2^ From “Trade Competitiveness of the Middle East and North Africa – Policies for Export Diversification”, The World Bank 2009.

3^ There are many regional agreements for the development of trade activity between MENA countries: bilateral preference agreements, the Pan-Arab Free Trade Area, the Arab Maghreb Union and the Agadir Agreement.

4 The World Bank, 2009. For an extensive review of MSME in the region and IFI support see “Catalyzing Job Creation and Growth through MSME Development in Deauville Partnership Countries”, AfDB, 2013.

5^ B2B e-commerce statistics are not available.

6^ Annex III contains a comprehensive institutional mapping per country as well as the country specific institutional set up.

7^ Created in 1973, the CEPEX is a governmental institution operating under the Ministry of Trade and Handicraft. CEPEX largely focuses its activities on country image building and marketing activities Services offered by EPAs usually fall into four broad categories: i) country image building (advertising, promotional events …), ii) export support services (exporter training, technical assistance, capacity building…), iii) marketing (trade fairs, exporter and importer missions…); and iv) market research and publications.

8^ Specific associations exist for: agricultural and oil producers, stones and garments and textile exporters. The engineering profession is one of the most relevant and numerous professional associations in the country regulating and monitoring the services delivered by these professionals. Engineering services are often exported to other countries in the region which lack the necessary skills in the sector. In the IT sector, both in providing services and software development is worth mentioning the information and Communications Technology Association of Jordan (INTAJ).

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   9^ The project is also aligned with the MENA TF objectives in terms of the type of projects eligible. In particular, -‘the Operations Manual mentions in its paragraph 15 “Eligible technical cooperation can include, inter alia, piloting implementation of key reforms”.
   

10^ Olarreaga and Schropp (2013).

11^ Mayer and Ottaviano (2007).

12^ World Economic Forum, 2013 “Digitization for Economic Growth and Job Creation”.

13^ http://www.intracen.org/

14^ Jordan is preparing its National Export Strategy which ITC is supporting.

15^ Booz and Company, 2011.

16^ Idem.

17^ Olarreaga and Schropp, 2013 “Commerce 3.0 for Development”, Geneva.

18^ Idem. Data based on commercial sellers (annual exports>USD10,000) in 2012. Source for “traditional exporters” World Bank EDD database (data not available for Indonesia, India, Thailand and the Ukraine).

19^ Alibaba Page Views: 7 million per day.

20^ Among the 60 targeted institutions in the region and beyond, 17 provided us with their feedback (i.e. a 28 percent response rate). This figure does not allow us to draw conclusions that are rigorously statistically significant. However, we can consider this exercise as a focus group with targeted stakeholders and we will analyze their feedback as such.

21^ Almost 200 SMEs at the time of finalizing this document had answered the survey. To conduct the survey, the Trade authorities as well as private sector associations and chambers of commerce, had been very collaborative and have distributed the survey among members and key partners.

22^ See Chauffour, Jean Pierre. 2013. From Political to Economic Awakening in the Arab World. Washington, DC: World Bank. The report emphasizes the role of the knowledge economy and how knowledge and innovation strategies increase export competitiveness. It also signals the potential of trade in services in the region.

23^ As an example, in Colombia, after 5 years, new sellers online have a much higher combined market share (22%) than offline firms (13%). Overall, the capturing of market shares is faster in the online world.

24^ Source: The Silatech index: Voices of Young Arabs, April 2011

25^ The potential of some of these sectors has been emphasized during the missions. See also AfDB, 2013.

26^ For a detailed description see Annex 3 – Institutional Mapping.

27^ For example, the Association of Women Entrepreneurs in Morocco (AFEM), one of the few initiatives in Morocco focusing on the development for women’s entrepreneurship, has manifested its interested in having one staff trained and engage in the project for the outreach of women entrepreneurs. In Jordan and Tunisia, other associations have shown great interest in participating actively in the project.

28^ However, none of the IFIs of the Deauville partnerships have projects on SMEs and trade in Morocco.

29^ This could be the case of Jordan – The HR Company would not have any managerial or project implementation responsibilities.

30^ OECD, 2013 “The Seoul Declaration An overview of Progress made and recommendations” on “Internet on the Rise”.

31^ The composition will vary from country to country as the corresponding authorities proceed with the identification of actors.

32^ This is more efficient than the EA supervising each account directly while at the same time allows for supervision and monitoring of SMEs behavior in the platforms similar to “hidden” customer techniques to asses client customer orientation used in different sectors and industries.

33^ See Operations Manual.

34^ For more details on the methodology see Annex 2 – Development Economics and Trade Integration Department (DECTI), World Bank, June 2013.