A meeting recently held in Hu Zhiming city announced Italy's sponsorship program for small and medium enterprises.

The SME cluster development plan has been supported by the Italy government, and has been jointly coordinated by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the planning investment department's enterprise development agency.

The Francesco Russo, chief technology adviser of the program, said that the 3 million euro project focused on improving the competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises through far-reaching technical assistance programs, focusing on the main weaknesses of Vietnamese enterprises, such as design and marketing capabilities, product and processing development, technology, quality inspection, and management and technical capabilities.

The objectives of the programme include also in Vietnam.

Three industries, namely leather and footwear, clothing and

Russo added that every small and medium-sized enterprise has the same weakness.

That is, they lack enough resources to compete in the international market in terms of scale, skills, technology, R & D, marketing information and financing.

However, if SMEs can be integrated together and be collectively competitive, they can help SMEs participate in competition and integrate with the market. At present, they have not yet achieved such capability.

Design, quality, marketing and expertise constitute the advantages of SMEs in Italy. Discount rates and easy access to Asian markets are seen as advantages of Vietnam's SMEs.

If we combine the strengths of two small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam and Italy, we can improve their competitiveness in the international market.