Project Name：Santa Elena Province Bamboo Industry Development Project (Ecuador)

Project status：Completed projects

Cooperating Country：South America, Ecuador

Project Description：The mountains of northern Ecuador are home to more than 1,400 hectares of bamboo, representing potential sites for bamboo development, and authorities in the province of Santa Elena, which is located in this region, hope to boost the local economy through the development of the industry. A small-scale bamboo processing industry already exists within the province, but in general the utilization of bamboo is very low. Specifically, people do not have the technical capacity to produce anything other than low-cost bamboo products. Authorities in the province hope that the TaiwanICDF can assist the existing bamboo craft industry in enhancing the extent of commercialization by providing guidance on the use of machinery to produce bamboo furniture, in turn enhancing the economic value of bamboo and increasing incomes.
The major challenge to Santa Elena province is that the application of existing bamboo products is limited, as there is currently no capacity to mass produce products through automation and/or machinery. As a result, production scale and profits are limited. Practitioners also lack the technical training needed to upgrade the design capacity of bamboo products, and lack product development, quality management and marketing capacity, making it difficult to increase profits in the industry.

Project No：TT-310-2014-035

Implementation Start Date：2014-11-26

Implementation End Date：2017-11-25

Project Objectives：1.Establish a bamboo design center in northern Santa Elena.
2.Train five staff to serve as seed trainers at the bamboo design center.
3.Host basic and advanced bamboo innovation craft classes for 60 people.
4.Host two short-term sales activities for bamboo crafts within Santa Elena.
5.Organize one bamboo crafts exhibition.
6.Produce one bamboo marketing research report.
7.Build 50 hectares of commercial bamboo fields and plant Asper bamboo, which is more suitable for bamboo lamination processing.
8.Train five staff to become micro- and small-sized enterprise counselors.
9.Provide tutoring to 15 microenterprises related to the bamboo industry.

Executing Agency：Provincial Government of Santa Elena, Ecuador

Project Contact：Gillian Lin

Phone：886-2-28732323 ext. 216

E-mail：ch.lin@icdf.org.tw

Signing Date：2014-11-26

Projected Benefits：At project completion, a 60 percent increase in annual sales among local manufacturers in the bamboo industry.