Last week, USAID introduced the USAID Linkages for Small and Medium Enterprises (LinkSME) project at Vietnam’s first ever International Machinery Fair in Ho Chi Minh City. The fair took place over three days, and attracted 120 exhibitors and 23,000 visitors, who represented a combination of firms of all sizes interested in buying and selling machinery components.

The USAID LinkSME project aims to strengthen the supplier-buyer relationships between Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and multinationals located in Vietnam to help local firms participate in global value chains. At this event, USAID LinkSME also signed an agreement with the Ho Chi Minh City Association of Mechanical and Electrical Enterprises (HAMEE) to partner on organizing events, conducting trainings and roundtables for SMEs, and linking HAMEE member firms to foreign firms working with the USAID project.

So What? Introducing USAID LinkSME to a targeted audience generated interest in the metal and electrical components community in working together to link Vietnamese SMEs .