Asian Development Bank

PROFIT (2020-2022)

Promoting Regional Opportunities for Investment & Trade (PROFIT) started in August 2020 and launched at the end of October that year. It was an initiative of the Asian Development Bank to encourage and promote growth in trade and investment between India and the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS, and which for the purposes of this project they defined as Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand). ADB awarded a contract to a partnership comprising IMC Worldwide (now subsumed into DT Global), Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry and ASSIST Asia. I acted as team leader. We developed an 'acceleration service' targeted at SMEs, that is, a programme of support designed to help businesses start or expand international trade activities more quickly (and we hoped more successfully) than they would have done if there had been no help available. The programme was especially challenging as it was implemented during the covid pandemic. Nevertheless, it achieved all its targets before coming to a conclusion in February 2022.

The final report provides a description of the programme and the lessons. BCCI and ASSIST continue to offer some support: details are available from them directly.