Thousands of Cambodia’s Leading Swine Farmers

With 70 percent of farm families raising one or more pigs, the swine production business is one of the leading sources of increased income and jobs for thousands of rural Cambodian families.  

Since assessing the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of Cambodia’s swine industry in 2005, the MSME Project team has worked alongside thousands of leading businesspersons to encourage better business relationships across the entire supply chain and increased investments in feed making and improved animal stocks. Readmore...

Motivating the Hesitant Businessperson

How MSME Encourages Change in Rural Businesses 

It was early 2006.  The MSME team drove down the narrow dirt path in Prey Veng province toward a small boat where dozens of teenagers were quickly unloading low-priced, low-quality tiles and bricks from small Vietnamese boats.  It was a sudden awakening for the MSME team and instantly explained why Cambodia’s clay roof tile and brick manufacturers weren’t interested in investing in their businesses. Readmore...

“You are all here today to improve Cambodia’s aquaculture production and improve your businesses,” said H.E. Nao Thouk, Director of Fishery Administration, during his welcoming remarks at the aquaculture business forum at Mr. Keat Kheng’s diversified aquaculture farm in Kampong Cham province in May 2011. 

The business forum was co-organized by the private sector, the Fisheries Administration Cantonment of Kampong Cham, and the MSME Project.  “The population of Cambodia is increasing and wild fish catches from the Tonle Sap Lake cannot feed all our people. Readmore...

Rural Trade Fairs Bring Business and Networking Opportunities to Rural Businesses

“This exhibition will bring local producers together and help them enter new markets”, said H.E. Chan Sarun, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, during his opening remarks in Bavet City, Svay Rieng province. “This kind of local product exhibit must be organized in every province by provincial governments”, he stressed.
More than 20,000 visitors tour more than 100 booths at each local products and services trade fairs. Organized in cooperation with local government officials and private sector businesses, the USAID Cambodia MSME Project engages a broad range of persons and firms in the agriculture, processing and manufacturing value chains. Readmore...

Working Together to Improve Animal Health Legislation

In January, 2009, officials at the Department of Animal Health and Production (DAHP) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (MAFF) asked the Cambodia MSME Project team to assist them to develop an overarching law on animal health and production.
The Food and Agriculture Organizations (FAO) had developed an initial law draft, looking primarily at the animal and public health issues. The draft covered virtually all aspects of breeding, feeding, raising, transporting, healing, slaughtering and selling animal products. Experience demonstrates that if draft laws are enacted without good analysis, they can significantly reduce investments while not securing the intended public health benefits. Read more...

Learning to Communicate…Strategy Training Improves Private and Public Sector Dialogue and Helps Solve Business Issues

Being strategic in communications helps business associations, cooperatives, communities and individuals solve their business problems. It also helps government officers improve communication and information dissemination between government departments and with private sector business leaders. Learning how to package a message, understanding how to craft the message so it will encourage action, and delivering the message at the right time all require planning. Read more...

Local Farmer Inspired by Radio Program to Start Business

Mr. Triev Phalin of Kampong Cham province never considered a career as a swine raiser, especially after watching some of his neighbors fail at operating their swine farms. He feared repeating their mistakes and losing his investments. But like many Cambodian entrepreneurs, he used his observations to craft a better strategy and become successful.
After listening to an episode of the Success Starts With You! Radio talk show produced by Equal Access as part of the USAID Cambodia MSME Project, Mr. Triev began to consider how he could make a profit from raising swine. Read more...

Private-Public Sector Partnership Improves Provincial Business Environment

In Svay Rieng province, a public-private sector partnership is promoting improvements in the province’s business environment that make the swine value chain more competitive. The partnership is between the private sector Svay Rieng Agriculture-Swine Raising Cooperative and two public sector agencies – the Provincial Department of Agriculture and the Office of Animal Health and Production.
The MSME Project assisted in the formation and development of the cooperative, Read more...

Trade Remedies to Protect Cambodian Businesses

Under the World Trade Organization rules, trade remedies actions allow businesses to protect themselves by filing complaints against unfairly priced imports or unexpected surges in imports. However, until Cambodia has the right laws and institutions in place, it cannot offer Cambodian business adequate protection under the WTO.
To address this problem, the RGC, led by the Ministry of Commerce, has formed a legal drafting team including senior representatives from several key ministries and the Council of Jurists. Read more...

Careful Evaluation of Rule Drafting Trainings Show Lasting Effect, and Demand for More

The MSME Project has conducted several trainings for RGC officials on how to write clear business regulations. The trainings were highly interactive, role-playing workshops, using a hypothetical case set in a mythical country, where all rules must be implemented exactly as written. The structure was designed to help national rule makers to think “outside the box” about their important roles as regulators. Participants had to balance the requirements of the law, with the conflicting needs of business, good governmental administration, and lines of authority among ministries. No salary supplements were paid and attendees came just to learn from MSME experts, and as importantly, from each other. Read more...

MSME Radio - Success Starts With You!

The Success Starts With You! radio program has passed the 400 broadcast mark in the first year of the USAID Cambodia MSME Project. The radio programs, produced by MSME consortium partner Equal Access, stimulate national dialogue on business issues and challenges. Programs are broadcast on 11 FM stations and 1 AM station throughout 12 provinces. Each week, the MSME Business Radio team interviews Cambodian businesspeople working in the aquaculture, swine, clay tile, honey, resin, garment, water and sanitation, and tourism value chains. Every other week phone lines are opened throughout the country encouraging callers to have their business questions answered live on the radio by the experts. Read more...

Improved Dialogue Leads to New Skills and Access to Better Supplies

More than 80 swine value chain participants, including government officials, attended a two-day visit to Mong Reththy’s Modern Swine Breeding Farm in Sihanoukville.. The visit, graciously hosted by H.E. Mong Reththy, a Cambodian Senator and the Co-chairman of the Public-Private Sector Working Group on Agriculture and Agro-Industry, showed participants new pig breeds and technologies, and encouraged discussions of issues and concerns related to the swine business. Read more...

Provincial Investment Promotion Draws the Right Attention

The private sector investment potential in Cambodia’s provincial areas remains significant but largely untapped; almost all major investment in Cambodia is targeted at Phnom Penh. This is partly due to inadequate investment promotion and facilitation capacities in the provincial areas, and partly to weaknesses in the provincial business climates. Read more...

Communications Training Gets the Message Out

For four days, Cambodia MSME Project consortium partner Equal Access provided strategic communications training to two groups – government officers and private sector businesspersons.
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Agricultural Cooperatives

Members Work Together to Improve Business for Everyone

Most Cambodian rural entrepreneurs express considerable reluctance when they are advised to form a “cooperative”.  In the past, the definition of that word had very negative implications to Cambodians;  most associated it with bad experiences in their pasts.

Assisting thousands of Cambodia’s best rural entrepreneurs to overcome their fear of cooperating together has taken several years of hard work by the Cambodia MSME team. Read more....

New Skills and Improved Confidence Leads to New Business Ventures for a Growing Family Business

As the family expands so too must the family business. Mr. Sin Chamroeun and his wife, from Chea Klang Commune, Prey Veng Province, started raising fish in their pond several years ago. The pond yielded enough fish for the family to eat; enough so, that the family could avoid purchasing fish in the market. But as their family grew, they needed more income to pay for school and other family necessities.
In 2009, Mr. Sin attended a technical training facilitated by the Cambodia MSME Project. At the training, he and his wife met other local producers, feed and fingerling suppliers, and traders. Shortly after applying the newly-learned technical skills to his pond, the Sin family had a commercial excess of fish, which they sold to local traders. Read more....

Diversifying from Rice Cultivation to Thriving Aquaculture Business

The USAID Cambodia MSME Project has been working in Prey Veng since 2006 to assist aquaculture farmers, fingerling producers and traders to develop their relationships and businesses. Currently, more than 100 firms in Prey Veng participate in the MSME Project value chain activities.
One result of the promotion of business-to-business relationship building efforts is that most of these 100 firms have graduated from small, barely-able-to-subsist, firms to commercial businesses. The MSME Project uses many activities to encourage business investment and technical skill building, such as working with input, fingerling and leading firms to provide free technical training, encouraging firms to join cross-provincial visits to meet, observe and emulate leading firms in other provinces, especially in areas around Phnom Penh. Read more...

Fish Harvest Yields Increasing Exponentially For Cambodia MSME Project Clients

Mr. Keo La, a fish raiser in Prey Veng province who’s been a client of the MSME Project since 2007, reports significant increases in fish production. When asked how new techniques helped him increase his production, Mr. Keo La responds, “Before I worked with the MSME Project, I harvested 700 kilos from this pond behind my house. My most recent harvest was 10,000 kilos from this same pond.
The Cambodia MSME Project team works to improve productivity of fish farmers through embedded technical assistance and works to develop market linkages by promoting relationships with new traders. Read more...

USAID Cambodia Promotes Local Swine Cooperatives

Though USAID Cambodia MSME Program clients have benefitted from increased technical skills, businesses and industries cannot grow if the business environment does not support new investment and growth.
As a result, among other things the project has supported the establishment of Community Working Groups (CWGs), composed of business owners in each targeted value chain, as a first step in a process of business association building. As a second step, the USAID Cambodia MSME Project helps these CWGs evolve into sustainable Business Membership Associations (BMAs), through association strengthening activities. Read more...

Profile of a Successful Feed Producer Group in Kampot

With its location on the sea and the rich earth of its interior regions, Kampong Trach District in southern Kampot province produces a bounty of protein and nutrient rich foods suitable for human and animal consumption. From small fish and shrimp, oyster shells, corn, cassava, and beans, the area possesses all the raw materials necessary to produce nutritious locally made animal feed.
However, in the past local swine raisers did not possess the skills to produce their own feed. These business owners bought commercial manufactured feed in local markets to mix with rice bran to feed their pigs. As a result, time and money were wasted, cutting into profits. Read moer...

Embedded Technical Trainings Enhance Linkages between Aquaculture Input Suppliers and Producers

Encouraging linkages between aquaculture input suppliers and aquaculture producers was difficult at first: input suppliers are often wary of working with small-scale local businesses, which traditionally lack technical sophistication and marketing experience. To empower aquaculture micro-entrepreneurs to develop and expand their businesses, the USAID Cambodia MSME project consults small-scale producers on business management and aquaculture techniques.
In 2006, the MSME Project began working with several hundred aquaculture micro-enterprises, which could only sell 5 to 10 % of their product after household consumption. Read more...

Enhancing the Implementation of Slaughterhouse Regulations through Public- Private Dialogue

Proper slaughterhouse management and regulation is essential to guaranteeing Cambodia’s livestock quality and public health. Inadequate understanding of sanitation and slaughter regulations is responsible for spreading disease, both between livestock and from livestock to humans. Livestock epidemics cause major economic losses to rural economies, depleting household assets and weakening the draft animals necessary for rice production. Input from all relevant stakeholders and experts, including veterinarians, livestock producers and traders, and public officials, is necessary to eliminate unsafe practices and to increase livestock production to meet the needs of Cambodia’s growing population. Read more...

Three MSME Clients Win Champion Awards in National Agricultural Competition

Cambodian agriculture is the backbone of rural livelihoods and makes a large contribution to the national economy. The need for agricultural innovation and development is a top priority in national assessments and policy frameworks. However, the innovations achieved by Cambodian agricultural enterprises on the farm are rarely in the national spotlight.
To showcase these innovations, the Ministry of Agriculture Forests and Fisheries (MAFF) has organized a National Agricultural Competition for farm enterprises. The aim was to identify five national Champions for each of five categories: Animal Husbandry, Aquaculture, Agro-processing and Agriculture Production, Rice Intensification and Agro- machinery. Read more...

Swine videos now adopted for practical training by universities and community NGOs across Cambodia

The USAID Cambodia MSME Project has produced a range of practical training videos to improve pig husbandry. They have been a success with client swine producers, but are now having a broader impact on agricultural development at the national level, as these videos are integrated into agriculture university curricula and NGO community level training packages.
A very good example is the video on Artificial Insemination, produced in 2008, with the aim of changing producers’ breeding practices to improve sow and piglet quality and to boost production volumes. Read more...

Aquaculture business grows with help from the USAID Cambodia MSME Project

Among thousands of dusty rural households in Barset district, Kampong Speu province, Mr. Keo Heng’s home stands out. It is green with trees and surrounded by several dozen well-prepared fish ponds. The neighbors don’t hesitate to point out that they see him as a real entrepreneur in the village.
When asked what makes him so successful and unique, the 47-year old father of seven replies with a smile that there are three keys to his success: hard work, good communications and being nice to people. Read more...

Swine Business Forum improves Cambodia’s competitiveness

Cambodia’s swine industry provides pork products for millions of
Cambodians and incomes for tens of thousands of rural farm families. An estimated 70 percent of rural households own at least one head of swine.
But import surges from neighboring countries, quickly spreading diseases, poor access to technical information and inefficient communications between the public and private sectors have caused hundreds of farm families to lose money and go out of business.
To improve the business environment in the swine industry in Cambodia, more than 230 participants from associations, input suppliers, traders, Read more...

Improving Business Relations for Aquaculture Businesspeople

Members of the Kambrodeus Aquaculture Community (KAC) have participated in activities supported by the USAID Cambodia MSME Project since 2007. At first, they were faced with technical issues in fish culture management. It was taking them between 1.5 and 2 years to reach one production cycle. After they had began working with the MSME Project team, their knowledge, experience and awareness of better aquaculture business practices improved dramatically. Their businesses have graduated from providing fish to their families for daily consumption to selling fish to Cambodian consumers at a reasonable profit. Read more...

Swine Raisers’ Investment in Local Feed Production Facilities Leads to Increased Income for Rural Households

The swine industry in Cambodia is dominated by micro and small enterprises involved in raising and trading. At the moment, the industry has been adversely affected by unregulated import surges, high input costs and low live-weight pig prices at the market. The high input costs are primarily due to the high cost of commercial animal feed, which comprises 70-80% of total input costs.
Nevertheless, swine raisers are realizing that they have a major advantage in that they can produce their own animal feed using ingredients like soy, maize and cassava, which are abundantly available in Cambodia. Read more...

Swine Forum to Resolve Unofficial Fee Collections in Svay Rieng

Mr.Neang Chantha is an outgoing pig raiser and trader. Due to his outstanding performance in encouraging the growth of the swine sector in his community, he was elected as the president of the Svay Rieng Value Chain Actors Cooperative, which was established on March 30, 2009 with support from the Department of Agriculture and the USAID-Cambodia MSME project.
Mr. Chantha owns 200 pigs and has contracted with casinos in Barvet, where a Special Economic Zone is located, to supply 30 pigs per day. He must comply with this demanding order otherwise it will not be renewed. Read more...

Cambodian Value Chain Actors Honored at the Philippines National Hog Convention

Experience demonstrates that select Cambodia MSME Project value chains are not yet functioning at optimal levels due to weak relationships between value chain actors. Moreover, there are few mechanisms to define and improve these relationships in a meaningful way.
For example, producers have few option for marketing their products and are usually ill informed about the effective methods to seel their products competitively. Read moer...

Cambodia MSME Forums Clearing Doubts of Swine Value Chain Actors on Prevailing Influenza A (H1N1)

Since the alerted outbreak in April, the pandemic influenza A (H1N1) has been spreading rapidly and is now present on almost all continents. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 45000 people are affected and nearly 2000 have died due to influenza A (H1N1). Yet, the true number of cases and infected countries are likely much higher. Many poor nations lack the capacity to test for the new virus, while in the U.S. – where infections have been widespread – doctors have only been testing a fraction of those who complain of flu-like symptoms. Read more...

Selecting Clients – Identifying Leading Enterprises

The Cambodia MSME Project follows a relatively straightforward model – begin by identifying market requirements, then choose and work with the leading firms across the entire value chain to meet those market requirements. The key to high performance is dependent on the MSME Project Team choosing the leading firms and then assisting them to acquire skills, knowledge and confidence. This activity update describes how the project defines and selects those leading firms. Read more...

Micro Magic In Rural Cambodia

In a remote village in rural Cambodia, Mrs. Pa Nei Sieng has turned a backyard chore into a thriving enterprise. What’s more, word of her success is spreading to others and they are emulating her.
Over the past three years, more than 1,000 rural Cambodians like Mrs. Sieng have transformed swine-raising from a subsistence activity into growing family enterprises. “Before I joined the project I was lucky to make $300 per pig-raising cycle, now I’m making about $5,000 per cycle,” Mrs. Pa Nei Sieng said. “Raising swine used to be a headache. Half of my piglets died and I didn’t know how to prevent this,” she explained. Read more...

Transforming Fish Ponds into Rising Income Streams

Thousands of rural Cambodians raise fish in ponds. However, their traditional methods produce only enough fish for household consumption, with a meager 5-10 percent left over for sale.
Besides low output, these ponds contribute to declining fish stocks in Cambodia because fingerlings are sourced from the Mekong and its tributaries. The MSME Project’s fish value chain interventions have produced, on average, a fivefold rise in output at fish ponds by linking their owners with privately-owned hatcheries that provide free technical assistance to their customers. The following is one example. Read more...

Improving the Business Environment Step-by-Step

Cambodia’s rough and tumble rural business environment got a little bit
gentler in early 2008. A first of its kind event, held on January 10 and 11 and co-sponsored by the Cambodia MSME Project and Senator Mong Reththy provided a venue for the private, public, and education sectors to travel together, engage in productive dialog, and begin to resolve some important issues constraining rural economic development.
The MSME Project invited more than 70 MSMEs and 8 commune and
provincial government officials from Kampong Cham, Kratie, Prey Veng, and Svay Rieng provinces. Senator Mong Reththy invited about 120 persons from education institutions and several government officers from the Ministries of Environment, Commerce, and Agriculture. Altogether, about 250 persons attended the forum. Read more...

Enhancing Access to Credit through the Value Chain

Although microfinance institutions (MFIs) target the MSME market, studies commissioned by the MSME Project reveal that MSMEs primarily borrow from input suppliers and family members and generally avoid financial institutions.
The many reasons for firms to avoid MFIs and banks include the fear that if the firm is unable to repay the loan, an MFI would be less forgiving than a local lender or input supplier. Another reason is that firms dislike paying monthly loan installments that begin almost immediately after obtaining a loan; far in advance of the firm’s ability to sell a finished product. Finally, even for small loans, borrowers are required to place their land as collateral, so firms risk their livelihoods for a small loan. Read more...

Improving Competitiveness Through Private-Public Dialogue

Cambodia’s swine industry competes with subsidized swine industries in Vietnam and Thailand. One reason Cambodia’s competitiveness is improving is because of more effective dialogue between private sector entrepreneurs and government officials. Reducing official and unreceipted fees throughout the value chain is essential to continued competitive positioning.
In early 2007, the MSME Project facilitated a familiarization mission for 14 Cambodian swine value chain participants to Thailand. During a tour of a Thai slaughterhouse, one Cambodian swine trader inquired about official and unreceipted slaughterhouse fees. Read more...

US Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli Visits MSME

The home of Kang Chevlay and his wife Kanha was abuzz with activity on June 13, 2007 when United States Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli visited to observe operations and discuss how the USAID-funded Cambodia MSME Strengthening Project has assisted them to grow their businesses.
Since the family business began working with the Cambodia MSME Project, Chevlay, Kanha and other family members have gained knowledge and skills and put them into practice. Read more...

Leading Business Continues to Invest and Grow

Mr. Kang Chevlay and his wife Kanha began raising swine in 2004 at their home in Svay Rieng province. When the family began working with the Cambodia MSME Project in June 2006, the enterprise was raising four sows and 10 finishing pigs and operating a barely profitable agriculture input supply business.
Animal mortality rates exceeded 50 percent, which discouraged any new investments in either of these businesses.
Access to medicines at that time was provided by traveling Vietnamese extension agents who offered limited technical advice and no technical training. Like many local swine producers, the family did not trust the quality of the medicines and vaccines and didn’t know how to properly use them because lableing and instructions were not in the Khmer language. With profits so small and business growth so difficult, Mr. Kang and his wife lacked the confidence needed to invest more financial resources in their
businesses or improve their technical and business skills. Read more...

Relinking a Broken Fish Value Chain is Difficult

Fish is the leading source of protein for Cambodians and a central part of their diet. A growing population and a declining fish harvest in the Tonle Sap Lake has resulted in considerable investment in aquaculture, including new ponds, fish hatcheries, and processing facilities. The USAID-Cambodia MSME Project facilitates improved market access for all value chain participants that results in improved incomes and enterprise sustainability.
The aquaculture value chain in Cambodia is oftentimes negatively impacted by well-intentioned donor-funded projects that inhibit the continued development of the industry. For example, in Svay Rieng province, NGOs take the place of the private sector input suppliers, technical advisors, buyers, and transporters. Read more...

Technology Investments Upgrade Fish Feed in Kratie

Raising fish requires investments of natural resources, physical labor, technical skills, and time. Cambodia aquaculture firms find it difficult to compete against more technologically advanced firms located in Thailand or Vietnam. The inefficient production techniques and processes mean Cambodian fish are of lower quality and higher price and less competitive in local markets where imported fish and processed fish products compete.
The fish value chains are relatively weak, characterized by limited numbers of private sector input suppliers to provide high quality processed feed and small markets outside the capital city of Phnom Penh. Read more...

Improved Relationships Leads to Cost Reductions

Cambodia’s agriculture sector is mechanizing and a relatively small number of rural entrepreneurs have recognized a business opportunity in the manufacture of hand-made agricultural equipment. In the four provinces in which the USAID-Cambodia MSME Project operates an estimated 50 micro and small scale businesses are producing a range of products including small centrifugal water pumps, rice cutters, rice threshers and cargo trucks. These businesses are plagued by a lack of technical and
manufacturing process know-how, thinning profit margins due to increased input prices, and inefficient marketing practices.Read more...

Partnering with Input Supplier Yields Big Dividends

Providing technical training and business development services to Cambodia’s rural producers, input suppliers, veterinarians and others doesn’t initially sound like a profitable endeavor. The willingness of most MSMEs to pay for technical training is constrained by poor incomes and compounded by skepticism that training will fail to pay dividends in the form of improved incomes or productivity. Rural Cambodian business persons expect nearly instant returns on investments made to their businesses, and especially with regards to training.
With this understanding, the USAID-Cambodia MSME Project has promoted partnerships with leading firms across the swine, fish, ceramic tile, and agriculture equipment manufacturing value chains. Read more...

Improved Technical Knowledge Leads to Profits

Rural Cambodian MSMEs have not had access to technical training, high-quality medicines, or good technical advice. As a result, swine raisers oftentimes lose up to 50 percent of their piglets due to common, easily curable diseases. The ability to identify these diseases and take remedial action to save the animals can result in direct benefits in the form of improved confidence, incomes, and profits.
Ms. Kong Sitha operates a small farm enterprise in rural Kampong Cham province where the average diversified MSME income is about $50 per month. With limited access to technical training, Ms. Sitha often watched helplessly as 50 percent of her piglets died. Read more...

Agriculture Product Promoters Find New Outlets

Cambodia’s rural agriculture enterprises face intense competition from Thailand and Vietnam, while suffering from exceptionally low on-farm productivity, a dearth of technical support from government-supported extension services, and lack of knowledge about how to obtain quality services.
The USAID-Cambodia MSME Project approaches these constraints by promoting technical and business services by Cambodian firms that provide this support as an embedded service; basically funded by product sales. The success of this approach is most obvious to the enterprises themselves. Since the Project’s beginning about one year ago, private sector firms
have partnered with the Project to provide technical services to the swine and fish value chains. Read more...

Input Suppliers Improve in Quality and Quantity

For more than a decade, Cambodia has been plagued with expired, diluted, and poor quality agriculture products, especially fertilizers, medicines, vaccines, and animal feeds. These products have been smuggled across the region’s porous borders and can be found in every local input supply dealer in rural Cambodia. Most of these products are misused by Cambodian business persons because the labels are not
provided in Cambodian language.
The USAID-Cambodia MSME Project initiated discussions with swine and fish raisers and discovered that many small agricultural enterprises lost 50% of piglets and 50% of fish fingerlings prior to maturity. The common denominator in loses appeared to be poor quality agricultural inputs, notably pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medicines. Read more...

Local Value-Added Training Services Emerge

Cambodia’s government-trained village livestock agents (VLAs)
have always had a tough time making a living because local
villagers consider them public servants instead of private sector
service providers. They receive no government support after
training and are expected to provide veterinary services at the
village level on a fee-for-service basis. The USAID-Cambodia
MSME Project has provided a big boost to several VLAs who are
now contracting value added services. Mr. Chan Sokhan’s story
is an excellent example. Read more...

Cross-Provincial Visits Improving Market Access

For most of Cambodia’s rural businesspersons, the cost of obtaining strategic technical and market information is prohibitive, primarily because most business persons lack knowledge of where information exists and cannot afford the time it takes to acquire this information. The USAID Cambodia MSME Project assists businesses in four rural provinces by
promoting first-time introductions through regular cost-shared
cross-provincial exposure trips. For most Cambodian entrepreneurs, initial introductions with new business people are difficult due mostly to cultural practices that inhibit persons from initiating inquiries. Experience
demonstrates that once these cultural barriers are reduced, business transactions normally follow in quick succession. Read more...

Filling the Training Gap Through Embedded Services

To improve the volume of swine produced in Cambodia’s rural
communities, which will result in increased incomes for swine producers, USAID, through its Cambodia MSME Project, is linking high-quality input suppliers to rural farmers. With limited technical skills and insufficient knowledge of pharmaceutical and animal feeds, most of Cambodia’s rural
farmers operate on paper-thin profit margins. Vietnamese farmers, with much greater access to improved medicines and feeds, are estimated to supply almost 50% of Cambodia’s pork. To become more competitive, Cambodia’s farmers need better access to technical training and improved products and services. Read more...

Design Innovations, Fuel Technologies, Markets, Transport, and Industry Growth Discussed at Tile Business Forum 

When Mr. An Han, a leading roof tile producer from Kratie, started his business in 1990, he operated his small family business alone using technical knowledge and business skills handed down from his parents.  Production volumes were small because his manufacturing processes were manual and time consuming.  One production batch took more than three months from start to finish. Read more...

Building a Successful Business, One Tile at a Time

Mr. Em Borith is a gentle man with great ambition. As owner of one of the largest brick and tile factories in northeastern Cambodia, as well as being a school teacher in Kratie province, Mr. Em’s hard work, passion, and unstoppable energy have made him successful.
Mr. Em started his business in 1993 using skills learned from his father. He started business with $800 and one kiln that churned out 30,000 bricks and tiles per month. He now operates four new kilns producing 600,000 to 700,000 bricks and tiles per month. Read more...

Adding Value to the Garment Industry Workforce
 

Pattern making is highly-valued in the garment industry. Until now, Cambodian garment industry workers had no options to learn the pattern making trade. Demand for these skills and related services continue to grow. In January 2011, the Cambodia Skills Development Center (CASDEC) responded to this demand with a program for Cambodians seeking a career in garment production or fashion design. A pilot program, supported with help from the ILO, honored the first 14 course graduates in February.
Program participants for this first course came from a variety of backgrounds. Entrepreneur Pin Phalla owns a workshop producing apparel for local high-end boutiques. Her clients expect highquality designs. Read more...
 

Brick and Tile Producers Collaborate to Renew Industry Growth and Seize Market Opportunities at MSME Business Forum

The clay brick and tile industry plays a very important role in Cambodia’s economy, providing jobs and building infrastructure in the country’s rural provinces. Since 2007, the Cambodia MSME project has helped select brick and tile factories increase productivity and improve product quality, providing technical and business advice, conducting cross-provincial and international exposure visits, holding business forums, and addressing the challenges of Cambodia’s business environment.
However, the global economic downturn has slowed construction growth and product demand, while imported bricks and tiles continue to squeeze domestic producers out of the market. Some brick and tile factories have decreased production in response to this difficult business environment. Read more...

New Production Management Certificate Trains Cambodian Garment Manufacturing Managers

A unique alliance involving Cambodia Skills Development Center (CASDEC), Puthisastra University, CAMFEBA and a small group of visionary garment factories is testing a program to prepare Cambodians for supervisory and management positions in Cambodia’s leading industry.
For those who believe the garment industry offers few opportunities and only employs poor women, the program may open some eyes. Designed by international engineering experts, the Production Management Certificate combines 2 months of manufacturing theory and techniques with a 1 month internship. Employers were enquiring about hiring the graduates before the course was half-complete. Read more...

Cambodia Can Do! The “I AM PRECIOUS” contest

Finally! Cambodia’s garment workers are being recognized for the significant contribution to Cambodia’s economy. Numbering more than 300,000, they represent the largest industry in the nation and are critical to the health of Cambodia’s economy. The I Am Precious contest is an annual event that encourages garment workers to take pride in their skills and achievements. The Contest is the brainchild of the Garment Industry Productivity Center (GIPC) in collaboration with the International Labor Organization (ILO), Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC), Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training, and the UNDP. The highly popular contest promotes creativity and self-esteem by encouraging new clothing designs made by Cambodians. Read more...

Increasing Production and Sales Volumes by Changing Production Practices

Small scale aquaculture producers benefit by improving fish culture management techniques and feed production. Common problems include improper pond preparation, failure to remove predatory fish before stocking, insufficient feeding, and too many water surface plants are some common technical faced by small scale producers. Poor technical skills result in poor production volumes and a negative rate of return for the time and resources invested in their aquaculture enterprise. Many fail.
To improve technical skills, the USAID Cambodia MSME Project collaborates with partners in the aquaculture business to facilitate Read more

The Cambodia Garment Industry: Building a Strategic Vision for the future

In an attempt to gather more comprehensive discussion and understanding on future of Cambodia competitiveness in the garment industry, the Tripartite Strategic Forum-initiated in 2006 by Asia Foundation- sponsored and organized quarterly for the past 2 years by GIPC and now Casdec (Cambodia Skills Development Center), had enlarge its audience and made the workshop into a conference with international experts in the industry.
Further to this initiative, results of the Business Forum gathering over 20 buyers held end of May to boost the private sector confidence was to be presented at the conference so industry stakeholders can consider them into their actions. Read more...

Introducing PATTERN MAKING COURSE

The industry has built its labor and production on a very specific part of the value chain: Cut, Make and Trim (CMT). Consequently, skills were to be developed in these areas of work. As industry is growing, a more comprehensive program to develop patternmaking knowledge would be a significant contribution to the competitiveness of the Cambodian industry. Factories and small producers have identified pattern making as a needed competence; and they acknowledge its benefit as it contributes to lower operating costs and higher productivity and quality. These requirements are always been the main concerns of GIPC/CSDC (Garment Industry Productivity Center, a program of Cambodia Skills Development Center). Read more...

Lead Tile Maker Invests and Sets Example for Others

Experience demonstrates that introducing leading firms to new manufacturing technologies and processes often encourages productive enterprise investments. Investing firms provide an effective demonstration to less advanced firms who are considering similar investments but are unwilling to take the associated risks associated of investing in new technologies and processes.
The USAID-Cambodia MSME Project promotes exposure to new technologies and processes while encouraging business relations between enterprises in different provinces and internationally. In November 2006, the Project facilitated its first cost-shared international trip to Vietnam for 13 leading Cambodian tile firms. The trip introduced tile makers to the highly competitive Vietnamese tile market and demonstrated how investments in new technologies and production processes help Vietnamese firms lower costs and improve quality. Read more...

International Exposure Improves Tile Investments

Cambodia’s ceramic roof and floor tile firms primarily produce the lowest quality products and compete with higher quality but similarly priced Vietnamese products or much higher quality Thai and Chinese products. Remaining competitive and maintaining market share requires investments by Cambodian MSMEs in new technologies, production processes, and kiln operations, as well as concentration on higher quality products that carry higher profit margins.
USAID’s Cambodia MSME Project aims to support the transformation of the tile industry to become competitive by providing technical assistance and encouraging industry leaders to recognize the need for change and then invest the necessary human and capital resources. Read more...

USAID Helps Water Companies Significantly Boost Piped Drinking Water Supplies in Six Provinces

As of September 2010, with assistance from the USAID Cambodia MSME Project, rural water service providers (WSPs) have connected a reliable and safety-tested source of drinking water to more than 8,900 rural and urban provincial households in six provinces. Through these investments, the WSPs invest, gain new customers and become viable enterprises. Families benefit from improved health, reliable and affordable water supply, and reduced labor.
“How significant are these achievements for the six provinces in which the Project works and for Cambodia?” Read more...

Water Promotion PDD Workshop in Kampong Cham

“I live on the top of [a] hill so it is hard to collect water especially in the dry season,” explained Mrs. Thorn Oan, a primary school teacher living in Prek Barang village, Prek Kok commune. “We don’t have enough water and the water we use is not clean”.
Mrs. Thorn Oan is the head of a family living among 50 other families at the top of a hill in Prek Prang Leu village, Steung Trang district, Kampong Cham province. She describes the hardships she and other families face through the shortage of clean water and says that people don’t realize the diseases caused by polluted water. Read more...

Sanitation Success in Svay Rieng province

Svay Rieng province, Cambodia has been a hotbed of activity in both the private and public sectors, which has resulted in an environment set for the adoption of sustainable sanitation. In the first 3 months of 2010, with over 2,500 latrine sales made, IDE’s Sanitation Marketing Pilot Program with the USAID Cambodia MSME Project has been able to demonstrate the tremendous business opportunities in sanitation available to local entrepreneurs.
In addition, local governing bodies have asked to take on greater roles and responsibility to support the remarkable results of latrine uptake in the area. Read more...

Partnering with the Private Sector to Expand Access to Safe and Clean Water

Major cities relied on temple ponds, rivers, wells, and rainwater to meet their daily needs. These waters were often polluted with human and animal wastes or agriculture and industrial chemicals. It is estimated that unsafe water cost Cambodia hundreds of millions of dollars due to sickness, diarrheal disease and premature death. It particularly impacts women and girls who shoulder most responsibility for gathering water and caring for sick household members.
To address this challenge the USAID Cambodia MSME Project employed an innovative value chain approach to leverage the energy and capital of the private sector and expand safe, piped water to households in more than 17 towns and villages. Read more...

Sanitation Marketing

Selling toilets may sound like a marketer’s worst nightmare, but making sanitation ‘sexy’ is catching on in Cambodia. Never before have have rural businesses in Cambodia concentrated so much effort selling latrines. The Sanitation Marketing Pilot Project is demonstrating that not only can sanitation be appealing; it is an attractive business opportunity as well.
In the past, purchasing a latrine in Cambodia was an arduous process where households had to source materials from several different suppliers and contract a mason to build it. Latrines accounted for less than 10% of sales for businesses that sell building supplies and services. Read more...

26 Water Service Providers Sign MOUs with Cambodia MSME

The USAID Cambodia MSME Project, implemented by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), hosted a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing conference with more than 80 persons representing 26 private water service providers and government officers from 10 provinces and Phnom Penh. Since most of the businesses are family-owned and operated, both the husband and wife were invited to attend the two-day workshop.
The MSME Project hosted the session at the Cambodiana Hotel in Phnom Penh to help entrepreneurs and government officers improve business relationships to serve more people with safe water. Read more...

Community Forest Agreements Take Major Step towards Ensuring Conservation of Community Forest Resources

Non-timber forest products and wildlife are vital to the livelihoods of people dwelling in or near forested areas. However, due to overuse, these resources are experiencing a rapid decline in many regions, endangering biodiversity and community incomes.
To halt this rapid destruction and to preserve Cambodia’s unique biodiversity, the Forestry Administration (FA) has introduced Community Forestry (CF), a nationwide program for decentralized forest management. Read more...

Honey Resource Zoning to Protect Bio-Diversity Conservative Areas

The USAID-Cambodia MSME project is assisting local honey producing communities to natural resources and adding value to their income through the promotion of sustainable honey harvesting and forest conservation. As large areas of Cambodia’s forest ecosystem have been damaged or destroyed due to the value of timber products and cleared land, forest communities that rely on non-timber products for their livelihoods have suffered. In response, the project has been urgently focusing on promoting land tenure for community-run forests in areas of targeted, bio-diverse conservation sites. Read more...

Indonesia Visit Offers a Learning Opportunity and Experience Exchange on NRM and Honey Business Best Practices

Natural resources, particularly forests, are very important for people and wildlife. Most Cambodian people dwelling in or near forested areas depend heavily on forest resources and non-timber forest products (NTFP) for household consumption and income generation. However, these resources have been over-exploited and NTFPs such as honey have been harvested using unsustainable practices, leading to severe degradation of resources, loss of bee habitats and changes in ecosystems and environments.
Local honey producers have begun to understand that implementing proper management systems for natural resource areas could provide them with both sustainable use and tangible benefits now and for future generations. Read more...

Business Advice Sweetens Profits for Honey Producers

Honey gathering has long been one of the most important activities for the forest communities in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province. For decades, it has been a vital source of nutrition, medicine and supplementary income for the economically disadvantaged communities that live in proximity to the forest. Critically, it also provides the villagers a source of livelihood that does not require cutting down and selling trees – a vital element in the fight to stop deforestation.
However, the manner in which honey collection has historically been undertaken contains much inefficiency in the harvesting, producing and marketing of honey. The result: an industry not meeting its potential. Read more...

Biodiversity Conservation – Bettering the Honey Business Environment Through Cross Provincial Trips

Harvesting and selling Cambodian wild honey is an important source of income for many rural poor, especially those who live in or near forested areas and depend heavily upon the natural resources found there. In the past, due to a lack of knowledge about sustainable practices, honey was collected through the use of damaging methods. This process killed the honey bees in the process and disturbed their environment, preventing future honey harvests.
However, if honey collectors use sustainable harvesting techniques by collecting only the honeycomb where the honey is found, rather than the entire hive, then honey could be harvested three times per hive, as opposed to only once. Read more...

Cambodia’s Forest Communities are Promoting

Eco-Tourism to Conserve the Remaining Forests

Community-Based Eco-Tourism (CBET) in Cambodia has been developing very well for the past decade, thanks in large part to enlightened forest communities, responsible government officers at the Department of Forestry, rigorous efforts by international, regional and local conservation organizations, and through donor-funded. Read more...

FAM Trips: Building Relationships between Private Sector Tourism and Hidden Treasure Sites

Community Based Ecotourism (CBET) development in Cambodia is still in its infancy relative to neighbors Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. However, CBET activities, supporting conservation and improving the livelihoods of local people, show great promise in Cambodia, which possesses a wealth of biodiversity and natural and cultural treasures.
To empower Cambodia’s CBET sector to attract new visitors and expand services, USAID Cambodia’s MSME Project is building relationships between private tour operators and CBET winners of the Ministry of Tourism’s Hidden Treasures Contest. Read more...

Establishing a Tourism Marketing and Promotions Board for Cambodia

The Ministry of Tourism and the tourism private sector recognize the importance of establishing a Tourism Marketing and Promotions Board for Cambodia.
International experience demonstrates that the most effective marketing and promotions boards are those that are developed through a public-private sector partnership. In recognition of this, the new Tourism Law mandates that a board be developed as a public-private sector entity.
The Ministry of Tourism requested the USAID Cambodia MSME Project assistance to coordinate private sector input and feedback on the draft sub-decree to establish the Cambodian Tourism Marketing and Promotions Board. Read more...

USAID Cambodia MSME Project promotes secondary tourism destinations where local communities gain more

In addition to the world renowned Angkor Wat, Cambodia is considered to be rich in cultural, natural and historical attractions that could enhance the tourism sector and boost economic growth. There are several hundred local tourism sites yet to be discovered
Recognizing the real potential impact of tourism in income generation for local communities, the USAID Cambodia MSME Project started an ambitious initiative in strengthening the tourism value chain. Read more...

Hidden Treasures: Lesser Known Tourist Destinations

Tourism has the potential to generate economic growth and reduce poverty in Cambodia. To create lasting growth, tourism development needs to be sustainable: protecting the environment, social cohesion and culture of local communities.
Cambodia tourist destinations have achieved world fame and large visitor increases year after year. To bring economic growth to a greater number of Cambodians, in an environmentally, culturally, and socially sustainable way, there is opportunity for Cambodian communities, in partnership with the private sector, such as tour operators, to increase visits to secondary or lesser known destinations. Read more...