Dubai Knowledge Village SME Builder conducts awareness session on Dubai Export Development Corporation

Held at the DKV Conference Centre and attracting over 70 business professionals, the workshop is in line with the three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) DKV has signed with Dubai Export Development Corporation (DEDC) for enabling human capital services organizations to aggressively expand their footprint across the region.

The forum highlighted some of the export services provided to SMEs, including facilities available in export preparation and facilitation, international assistance and the Export Assistance Programme that is scheduled to be launched early next year.

Dr Ayoub Kazim, Executive Director, Dubai Knowledge Village and Dubai International Academic City, said:

"We are pleased to feature Dubai Export Development Corporation in this edition of the DKV SME Builder. Through this session, we anticipate our partners at the cluster to fully develop their export potential, even as we strive to steer Dubai's growth towards a knowledge based economy."

Launched in June 2007, the DKV SME Builder continues to provide an ideal environment for small and medium enterprises to continuously gain special insights into latest industry developments through interaction with experts leading the forums.

The DKV SME Builder workshops have successfully attracted an increasing number of participants, including leading industry experts and specialists from sectors ranging from HR and sales to operations, marketing, law, IT, strategy, PR and accounts.

Rami Rabia, Senior Exporter Relations Officer at Dubai Export Development Corporation, led the awareness session on DEDC and shared some of the services being offered to SMEs.

The Export Assistance - Grants Programme, currently being finalized, will be available online. It seeks to support existing and potential exporters by allowing reimbursement of up to 50% of eligible export promotion expenses comprising marketing visits, trade missions, trade exhibitions, overseas representation, market research and overseas buyers.

Export Credit Insurance Company of the Emirates, a sister company of EDC, is the first company in the UAE solely dedicated to providing export credit insurance as an alternative to Letter of Credit (LC). Through this facility, exporters enjoy the advantages of reduced financial risk and better cash flow.

EDC has also launched the Trade Link Programme, which aims to establish cooperation with other trade organizations to further promote the UAE as an entrepot. At present, target markets include Australia and South Africa.

Hasan Makansi, Head of Partner Development at DKV, said: "With the increasing success of the DKV SME Builder and the growing number of participating companies, we have expanded our advisory board to include experts in 'Negotiations' and 'Online Advertising', as we believe the two areas are vital to the growth of SMEs. This also comes in response to the feedback we received from our participants, as we constantly aim to organize our workshops based on the needs of participating companies.

"The discussions stimulated by the workshops are gaining increasing significance among small and medium sized business owners who are in dire need of industry expertise and effective solutions for tackling the challenges linked to the current economic situation. This is also one of the reasons why we aggressively seek to bring on board external parties that support SMEs, as in the case of Dubai Export Development Centre."

Recently, the DKV SME Builder launched the SME Knowledge Base where all professional interactions between experts and participants are digitally captured to be made available online later.

Dubai Knowledge Village endeavours to be a centre of learning and excellence and continues to spearhead activities that highlight the importance of developing a highly skilled knowledge community.

Home to over 400 professional training centres, the cluster specializes in human resource development, human resource management, professional testing, as well as management training and consultancy services.