Project USAID EDGE

The project is supported through grant from the regional USAID Economic Development, Governance and Enterprise Growth Project. This project proposal has been prepared by the joint efforts of the TTA-Textile Cluster from Macedonia, FACTS Cluster from Serbia  and Proekspo Association from Albania. All three clusters have mutually cooperated for more than a decade.  This project proposal was designed on the experience of each of the partners, as well as feedback received from the cluster members.  The proposal is in line with the strategies and main activities of each of the partners, as well as in line with the regional Open Balkan Initiative, signed between Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the sustainable economic growth of the textile industries in Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia. Specifically, the project aims to improve competitiveness of the textile – apparel production companies operating within the clusters and increase export, to gain certifications needed for their export activities, improve cross country cooperation and to increase the number of new clients. The project will strongly cooperate with the educational institutions, members of the three partners. The set of the activities will be organized in the scope of the project realization and will consist of 3 parts:

1. branding, ecommerce, digitalization and fashion trends data,
2. compliance with social accountability standards and
3. match making, establishing business linkages, networking and internationalization.

The benefits from the project are in the two directions:

1. strengthening the capacities of the partners’ clusters in improving the existing and developing new services for their members and
2. improving companies’ (clusters’ members) competitiveness and initiating cooperation between companies in the Balkan region and wider.

The project partners are clusters with long-term experience in developing and   running cluster activities, representing the textile industry in front of government institutions, international markets and foreign buyers. All of the partners have experience in offering services for their members such as human resource development, export promotion and match making, joint procurement, cooperation with educational institutions and implementation of the significant number of domestic and foreign financed projects