BSPS Project (Vietnam)

The Business Sector Program Support (BSPS) is a Danida Vietnam program designed to foster broad based economic growth in Vietnam through the further development of the competitiveness of the business sector. Within this program, there is a component focusing on producing and effectively disseminating high quality business sector research. This is done with a view to informing and improving economic policy making vis-à-vis the small and medium enterprise and rural household sectors in Vietnam.

The program component is implemented as a research cooperation between two Vietnamese institutions, the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) in the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) of Vietnam and the Institute for Labour Science and Social Affairs (ILSSA) in the Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA) of Vietnam, on the one hand, and DERG on the other. The cooperation has involved a commitment of the concerned parties to jointly implement a comprehensive research project over a time horizon of five years (2005-09). The program was recently extended for one more year, 2010.

Within the above framework, DERG has delivered advisory and technical assistance services for the following two sets of activities:
1. SME Research Project: Biennial surveys (2005, 07, 09) of circa 2,500 non-state manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in 10 provinces of Vietnam.
2. Household Research Project: Biennial surveys in 2006, 2008 and 2010 (ongoing) of circa 3,000 rural households in 12 provinces in Vietnam, focusing on household welfare and with a particular emphasis on the markets of land, labour and capital.

In both cases, DERG has worked with the relevant Vietnamese institutions in the design of the survey module, the implementation of the surveys and data collection, and the subsequent analysis of data, production of research on pertinent issues affecting SMEs and rural households in Vietnam, and dissemination of results to the wider Vietnamese and international audiences. Throughout, there has been a focus on collaboration with Vietnamese researchers with a view to developing their research capacity through in-service training, collaborative research, seminars, training workshops, conferences, and continuous interaction on professional matters. Extending and deepening CIEM’s and ILSSA’s international networks has also been pursued.