As part of a nation-wide “Support Programme for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises” of the Peruvian Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Integration and International Negotiations (MITINCI), this regional project cooperates with Chambers of Commerce and Industry in 4 northern provinces of Peru, namely in the cities of Trujillo, Cajamarca, Tarapoto and Pucallpa.

The main objective is to impact regional development by improving the institutional capacity of 4 Chambers of Commerce and Industry to co-operate with other regional “players”, the second objective is to establish a sustainable management consultancy service system to strengthen SMEs’ competitiveness in different sectors:

• Tourism in all four cities
• Shoe and leather and asparagus in Trujillo
• Dairy products in Cajamarca
• Tropical forest management and timber industry in Pucallpa

The main aim of the project is to strengthen all four partner organisations in their task as service providers for their members and as generators of proposals for regional development. Institutional strengthening is seen as a basis to build self-sustaining service systems that meet the real needs of SME.

One task is to create consciousness among entrepreneurs on the significance of investments, management skills and improvement of processes, as well as cost-structures, to be able to compete in quality. But is has been shown that preparation of technical and socially competent consultants is the bottleneck to establish service markets in management consultant services.

Porter’s methodology for international competitiveness has been adapted to regional and sector dimensions. It is shared within the mentioned nation-wide Support Programme for SMEs, sponsored by GTZ. Several consultancy products have peen successful introduced on the SME-level. The main instrument used is an integral service system of consultancy that focuses on quality management, cooperation between enterprises, transfer of technology and access to business information, aiming to improve employment conditions, too.