Notes

Complete Guide for Trying to get BUD Special Fund 2020
Since its launch in 2012, the BUD Special Fund has been well received by SMEs. So as to encourage Hong Kong companies to develop their brands, upgrade, transform and promote in Mainland China and free trade agreement economies, the BUD Mainland Program and the Free Trade Agreement Program have provided a total of HK$4 million. One-on-one matching funding. BUD consultants summed up their experience and brought readers the following "Complete Guide to Applying for BUD Special Funds 2020"

The essential application qualifications for the BUD special fund are as follows:

Valid business registration
Proof of substantive operation
non-listed company
The specific operation certificate includes MPF contribution records, business contracts, receipts and invoices, audit reports and tax bills, etc. Because Human Design is not a venture fund, the BUD Fund requires companies to get a certain operating basis. Too little turnover, no employees or no relevant business experience could cause the application to fail.

Requirements for the business relationship between your applicant company and the neighborhood area
Based on the BUD application guidelines, the applicant company and the local business must comply with among the following relationships:

The applicant company holds 50% or even more of the equity of the local business
Exactly the same natural person shareholder holds 30% or more of the applicant company and 50% or more of the local business
The same group of natural person shareholders fully hold the applicant enterprise and local business
The relationship between the applicant company and the neighborhood business is often the reason why the BUD Fund applicant company does not meet the qualifications.

Funding
Each eligible company can apply for a Mainland program or a free trade agreement program up to 40 times, and the amount of subsidy each and every time is 50% of the project expenditure or HK$1 million (whichever is lower). In addition, additionally, there are a percentage of the project breakdown measures. Or the most. Each eligible company can accumulate funding as high as HK$4 million, and all companies with an increase of than 30% of the shares held by the same shareholder are regarded as affiliated companies (which should be disclosed to the ultimate natural person shareholder), and the cumulative upper limit must be calculated together.

Scope of funding
The funding measures of the special funds for brand development, upgrading and transformation, and market expansion must target these three objectives.

Develop brand
Brand development strategy and positioning-market research, brand specifications and manuals, etc.
Brand design and communication-redesign, intellectual property and promotion evaluation, etc.
Brand management-employee training and service skills test to improve brand value
Brand Monitoring-Investigate customer and market experience of the brand
From brand repositioning and design to continuous and effective brand supervision, with the purpose of enhancing the overall value of the brand

Upgrade and transformation
Business design transformation-including transformation from OEM production to in-house design and branding
Product innovation-new product development or strategy
Technological upgrade-upgrade manufacturing technology and industrial automation, etc.
Management upgrade-business structure reorganization, quality control, etc.
Improve operations through technology and modern management solutions to increase overall productivity and create new market space

market development
Strategy formulation-market development and promotion re-planning
Improve marketing-multi-channel promotion
Marketing management-marketing staff and management
Use various online and offline promotion channels to push brands and products into target markets and increase sales opportunities

Item category
There are two types of BUD projects: category (i)-overall business plan formulation and category (ii)-implementation of specific measures

Category (i) Overall business plan formulation
If the company does not have any nearby operations or experience in the target market, it really must formulate a thorough business plan first. At this time, it is more suitable to use for the BUD category (i) project. The government use a one-to-one matching solution to subsidize the business?s employment. Qualified business consultants assist companies in planning overall plans to enter the mainland or free trade areas.

Category (ii) Implementation of specific measures
When a company has plans as well as has certain operations in the prospective market, and hopes to fund brand development, upgrade and transformation, and expand the marketplace, it can apply for BUD category (ii) projects. At the moment, the secretariat will expect the applicant company to hand over Plan overall and respond regularly. For example, an agent applying for BUD can hand over a whole agency contract.

Evaluation process and criteria
The application form will first be submitted to the BUD Secretariat (implemented by the Hong Kong Productivity Council) to check on whether the documents are complete, measure the eligibility of the application, and ask the applicant company for just about any unclear points, and submit it to an inter-departmental organization composed of different departments. The group recommends to approve the application form and the quantity of funding before it really is finally passed to the Project Management Committee (usually chaired by the Director of Trade and Industry) to decide whether to approve the inter-departmental group?s recommendations.


Approval standard
Help the applicant company's immediate or long-term development in the local business
Establish or enhance the local competitiveness of the applicant company
Substantial results for monitoring or evaluation
Practical actions to develop the local market
Reasonable, subdivided and justified budget
Priority considerations
Small and medium enterprises (manufacturing industry with less than 100 employees or service industry with less than 50 employees)
The project can be successful in a short time and can turn into a model for other Hong Kong companies
Synergies in all areas
Use Hong Kong products or services to bring work at home opportunities to Hong Kong and benefit the Hong Kong economy
The ability to fully reflect the advantages of the applicant company and the proposal in line with the evaluation conditions can decrease the doubts and contacts of the BUD secretariat, speed up the application process and the chance of success.

Application document
Business registration certificate and company registration certificate
Shareholder certificate
Proof of Substantive Business
Apply for the business's annual audit report
Business registration of local business
Documents to prove the partnership between your Hong Kong applicant enterprise and the neighborhood business relationship
Profile of the applicant company
Substantive business certificates generally make reference to commercial contracts such as MPF contributions, receipts, invoices, bank statements, tax bills, and lease bills.

*Please note: Only online electronic applications will undoubtedly be accepted after July 31, 2020

Project unfolding
The applicant company can confirm the application by the secretariat to start the project the next day. However, if the application fails or the funding is insufficient, the federal government will not be in charge of the remaining costs and the business needs to bear it. In most cases, it requires about 3-4 months to use for BUD Fund.

Appropriation process
If the BUD Fund application is approved, the business can choose to have the initial funding, that is 75% of the funding amount; if the first funding isn't accepted and the project period exceeds 1 . 5 years, a mid-term funding of 50% of the funding amount will undoubtedly be issued. %; and the ultimate appropriation may be the balance of the funding. The actual quantity of interim and final funding depends upon the progress of the project and actual expenditure.

If the actual expenditure is less than the original and mid-term appropriations, the rest of the funds have to be returned to the government.

My Website: https://humandesign.com.hk/