Project Helps Over 500 Armenian SMEs Generate Jobs, Sales
On December 3, 2007, the USAID Armenia Agribusiness Small and Medium Enterprise Market Development Project (ASME) hosted an open house event in Yerevan to celebrate the project’s seventh anniversary and to mark the achievements in small and medium business market development in Armenia since the project’s inception in 2000.
At the December event, ASME Chief of Party Gary Kilmer highlighted the project’s accomplishments as well as the importance of the constructive collaboration and networking built among ASME partners, which has further fostered the growth of SME market in Armenia and expanded business opportunities nationwide.
The open house united over 400 ASME partners, some of which showcased their company products, including agribusiness goods, handicraft, textile, medicine and cosmetics. While ASME initially targeted agribusiness enterprises such as canneries, dried fruit producers, meat processors, milk processors, poultry producers, and fish farms, the project broadened the focus in 2004 to include a wider set of non-farm rural enterprises as well as textiles and apparel, which contributed to the development of the Armenian fashion industry.
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| Fashion Marketing Solutions LLC is the founder of the Armenian Fashion Council and the organizer of “Prêt à Porter Yerevan” – the only seasonal fashion show event in the country aimed at fostering the burgeoning fashion industry in Armenia |
“People thought there is no fashion industry in Armenia, but the truth is we do have a very promising and capable generation of fashion designers,” said guest-speaker Armine Tadevosyan, the co-founder of Fashion Marketing Solutions (FMS) LLC. Established in 2003, the young firm provides comprehensive marketing and consulting services to Armenian apparel, textile and fashion companies and has founded the Armenian Fashion Council NGO, now boasting 70 members.
ASME was also instrumental for Armen Khachatryan and his three friends, who founded Elita Ltd., the sole yeast manufacturing company in Armenia. “Through the project’s technical expertise and assistance in business skills development, we increased our production and sales volume 20 times, now capturing 70 percent of the yeast market in Armenia,” Khachatryan told event guests.
The seven-year, $18 million ASME project has provided direct assistance to over 500 different Armenian firms in the form of intensive one-on-one management assistance, business and capital planning, market development, cost share grants and training. Through ASME, these firms generated increased export and domestic sales of approximately $55 million and created over 17,500 full-time equivalent jobs.
In recognition of the project’s achievements, by the decree of the Minister of Agriculture Davit Lokian, ASME Chief Gary Kilmer was awarded a gold medal for the project’s accomplishments in SME market development in Armenia, animal disease diagnosis and prevention, food safety improvement as well as assistance in response to the growing threat of avian influenza in 2006.
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