International business development, standards and environmental issues: informal producers at the time of global market.

Global market and the fall of transportation costs have open a great window of opportunities for Small and Medium Enterprises, which can today target foreign market like multinational firms. Nonetheless, the international development of business activities requires an appropriate level of organization and the compliancy toward international trade regulation concerning production methods and products characteristics.

Within this context, SMEs and artisans of the informal sector should benefit from this outstanding opportunity to develop their activity, but they are often facing obstacles like the lack of organization, management skills and recognition from institutions. Moreover, the use outdated and resources-consuming technologies, which is quite common in the informal sector in developing countries, raises the question of environmental sustainability at a time where environmental issues are at the centre of the global debate and is increasingly taken into consideration by consumers.

The project “SMART (SMEs for Environmental Accountability, Responsibility and Transparency) Myanmar” Implemented by SEQUA gGMBH aimed at supporting and promoting the sustainable production of garments “made in Myanmar” striving to increase the international competitiveness of SMEs in this sector.

The project aimed to build capacity and increase skills and knowledge in local partner organizations, facilitating the development of marketing and export strategies. The project objective was to increase the competitiveness of SMEs in the garment sector of Myanmar and set preconditions for replication towards other sectors.

During the implementation of the project, several best practices have been identified as follow:

• Provide energy audits/consultancies to decrease energy consumption and make production more sustainable
• Increase standardisation of production through the elaboration and adoption of a Code of Conduct
• Provide technical assistance for Advocacy activities. For being effective, advocacy should target all the stakeholders of the sector, both public and private.
• Training delivery on resources efficiency, productivity and cleaner production
• Introduce international recognized standard procedure to make the final product compliant with international trade regulation to facilitate export.