To improve goods quality of SMEs

Provincial People's Committee has approved the project "Improving productivity and quality of products and goods of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Binh Duong period 2017-2020". This is one of the projects under the national program "Improving productivity and quality of products and goods of Vietnamese enterprises up to 2020" under Decision No. 712 / QD-TTg dated 21 May 2010 of Prime Minister. Binh Duong Newspaper interviewed Nguyen Binh Phuoc, Deputy Director of provincial Department of Science and Technology, about this project.

- Binh Duong has nearly 29,800 domestic investment enterprises, of which the number of SMEs accounted for a large proportion. What are the objectives of this project, sir?

- The Project "Improving productivity and quality of products and goods of SMEs in Binh Duong period 2017-2020" is one of the projects and programs contributing to the achievement of socio-economic development objectives, tasks and orientation of the province in the period 2016-2020. The goal of this project is to improve the productivity and quality of products and goods of enterprises in the province, based on the application of technical standards, specifications, advanced management system, productivity improvement tools; contribute to heighten the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) to at least 35% by 2020. In addition, the project will significantly improve the productivity and quality of products, goods, competitiveness of enterprises; develop necessary resources to maintain, promote and develop the productivity and quality movement to improve the efficiency of enterprises.

According to the plan, in the period 2017-2020, Binh Duong would have 52 certified products to meet standards, 20 companies to develop and apply advanced management systems according to international standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO / IEC 17025..., 9 enterprises apply some tools to improve productivity and quality suitable for enterprises (5S, Kaizen, quality group QCC, key performance indicators KPI ), 16 enterprises to receive national and Asia-Pacific awards.

Ton Dong A Joint Stock Company (Di An town) won gold prize of National Quality Award in 2015 and first prize in Asia-Pacific International Quality Award in 2017. In photo: Production at Ton Dong A Factory.

- To businesses, besides enterprise’s fund for the development of science and technology, what are policies of the State to support?

- The State will support enterprises in providing consultancy, certification and announcement of standard conformity with the support level of no more than VND 20 million / product; consultancy on construction, application and certification of advanced quality management systems with the support level of no more than VND 40 million / system; support in the application of tools to improve productivity and quality (training, consultancy...) of no more than VND 30 million / tool, each enterprise could be supported to apply 4 tools with the amount not exceeding VND 120 million.

The State shall also reward enterprises with national prizes, gold prize is VND 20 million / time / enterprise; silver prize VND 15 million / time / enterprise and VND 25 million / time awarded to enterprise wins Asia-Pacific Quality Award.

- The recognition, certification of results is very important. Could you please tell us, how will this work be implemented?

- In order to promote equality, Department of Science and Technology will set up the Selection Council and Acceptance Council on the basis of enterprise’s participation registration for the project and the proposal of Department of Standardization, Metrology and Quality. The council is responsible for reviewing, analyzing and proposing enterprise participation in the project and evaluating the results, which Department for Standardization, Metrology and Quality will submit to DOST for approval. Selection Council and Acceptance Council will consist of members from relevant departments, agencies and units.

- For the effective implementation of the project, what content will be implemented?

- The main contents include the organization of conferences and seminars to disseminate information to the participants on support policies and ways to participate in the project; training for 300-500 enterprises about how to set standards, announce standards, announce standard conformity, methods of applying tools to improve productivity; building databases, measuring productivity of economic sectors, TFP index of the provincial economy.

Besides, in order to create motivation for businesses, the province will honor and reward enterprises and individuals with excellent achievements in productivity, quality; with national quality prizes, Asia-Pacific international quality award.

- Thank you!

Reported by Hoang Pham – Translated by Ngoc Huynh 

• Policy credit requires local entrusted capital source to balance (23/04)
• Creating favorable conditions for social housing buyers (23/04)
• Giant Group pours additional US$ 120 million into Binh Duong (23/04)
• Thuan An city in striving to fulfill type-1 urban criteria (22/04)
• Vietnamese furniture products introduced at Milan Design Week (21/04)
• Local real estate market strongly attracts foreign investors (20/04)
• HCM City moves towards Net Zero (19/04)
• Further setting up project on entrusting loans to officials, civil servants and public employees for buying social housing apartments (19/04)