Piura-Lima, Peru. May  06 to 08, 2014

The Permanent Secretariat organized and conducted the Workshop on Internationalization and Promotion of Caribbean SME Consortiums, held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on 8 and 9 July 2013. the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), in cooperation with the Caribbean Export Development Agency (CEDA) and the Export and Investment Centre of the Dominican Republic (CEI-RD).

During this activity, Latin American and Caribbean countries exchanged methodologies and policies. An analysis was made of the internationalization of SMEs in the Caribbean and the characteristics of SMEs networks. As a result, they agreed to organize training workshops for trainers of networks and business consortiums in the Caribbean region.

This subject of export consortiums was initially addressed in collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in June 2012, when the Latin American Seminar on SME Export Consortiums was carried out in Quito, Ecuador.

The Permanent Secretariat also organized and held the “Regional Workshop on the Development of Handicraft SMEs,” in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia, in July 2013, in collaboration with the entity Artesanías de Colombia (Crafts of Colombia) of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism. On that occasion, representatives of Artesanías expressed their interest in deepening topics and methodologies of origin and export consortiums presented during this activity. In this regard, they requested the Permanent Secretariat to prepare a training workshop for trainers with representatives from the region.