Bolivia: Supporting companies in getting closer to Swedish and European markets

A 21-month collaboration with Bolivia aims at increasing export capabilities of Bolivian small and medium sized enterprises in the food and natural ingredients sectors to the European market in general and the Swedish market in particular. This is how the collaboration is carried out.

As part of a large Sida-funded Inclusive Market project, Open Trade Gate Sweden (OTGS) in collaboration with Swisscontact, a private and independent operating foundation, has started a 21-month collaboration running May 2020 through December 2021 in Bolivia.

With Swisscontact receiving funding from Sida and OTGS through its own funds, the collaboration works with two Bolivian business support organisations (BSOs) and 14 Bolivian small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to bring Bolivian superfoods, such as quinoa, chia and amaranth processed food or as natural ingredients, closer to the European market in general and the Swedish market in particular.

The collaboration primarily aims to:

• increase the export capabilities of Bolivian SMEs in the food and natural ingredients sectors so that they are prepared to access European markets.
• enhance the export promotion capacities of two Bolivian business support organisations (BSOs) through the development and implementation of (new) trade promotion services for SMEs, in order to increase the export of processed foods and natural ingredients to European markets, primarily Sweden.

Due to the current situation pertaining to COVID-19, the collaboration has for 2020 switched from physical trainings and activities such as matchmaking activities, trade fair participations and selling missions in Bolivia and Sweden/Europe to online-based activities.

In concrete terms, one of these activities in 2020 includes for OTGS to write and make available for the Bolivian SMEs a market analysis on superfoods for the Swedish market as well as a virtual training for SMEs on that same topic. OTGS will also work with online selling missions whereby selected Bolivian SMEs will be able to introduce their products to Swedish companies. The two BSOs are instrumental in implementing the project and all activities will be carried out either through the two BSOs but targeting the SMEs or by targeting the BSOs directly.

Through these interventions, the collaboration between OTGS, Swisscontact and the Bolivian BSOs and SMEs aims to contribute to the overall objective of the Inclusive Market project of improving the living conditions of men and women working in agricultural sector by helping them reduce their poverty situation.