Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently funded two courses on SME development strategies and public-private partnership for infrastructure development at the Lao–Singapore Training Centre.

Forty-two Lao government officials attended the two courses conducted by Mr Mohan Panicker of the Singapore training enterprise, Globalab Pte Ltd.

The “Public-Private Partnership in Development of Infrastructure Projects” course was held from Dec 5-9, 2016 and aimed to equip participants with the ability to effectively plan and implement infrastructure projects using the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model.

Topics covered during the course included public-private partnership sourcing and procurement, frameworks for measuring, monitoring and reporting on PPP infrastructure projects, and identifying and mitigating risks and challenges inherent in such PPP projects.

The “Developing Government Strategies for SME Development” course, which was held from Dec 12-15, 2016, focused on how government policies and strategies could be used to support SME growth through the right mix of incentives and assistance programmes, and support SMEs access to domestic and international markets.

It also explored how to monitor, evaluate and communicate these policies to SMEs to ensure that SMEs are aware of the support available and able to effectively utilise them.

The courses were conducted pursuant to the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI).

Under the IAI, Singapore conducts 25 to 30 courses per year at the Lao-Singapore Training Centre focusing on areas of public governance, finance, urban management, hospitality and tourism, civil aviation, as well as IT and English skills.

About 600 Lao officials are trained each year and more than 12,000 Lao government officials have benefited from the ministry’s various training programmes under the Singapore Cooperation Programme since 1993.

Source:
courtesy of KPL NEWS AGENCY

by KPL

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