Notes

Complete Guide for Applying for 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 complete 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 basic application qualifications for the BUD special fund are the following:

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. Since the business support plan is not a venture fund, the BUD Fund requires companies to possess a certain operating basis. Inadequate turnover, no employees or no relevant business experience may cause the application to fail.

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

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

Funding
Each eligible company can obtain a Mainland program or a free trade agreement program up to 40 times, and the amount of subsidy each time is 50% of the project expenditure or HK$1 million (whichever is lower). In addition, additionally, there are a share of the project breakdown measures. Or the most. Each eligible company can accumulate funding of up to HK$4 million, and all companies with more than 30% of the shares held by exactly the same shareholder are thought to be affiliated companies (which must be disclosed to the ultimate natural person shareholder), and the cumulative upper limit should 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 connection with the brand
From brand repositioning and design to continuous and effective brand supervision, with the goal of enhancing the entire value of the brand

Upgrade and transformation
Business model 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 methods 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 forms 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 prospective market, it really must formulate a comprehensive business plan first. At the moment, it is more suitable to use for the BUD category (i) project. The government use a one-to-one matching method to subsidize the company?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 or even has certain operations in the target market, and hopes to fund brand development, upgrade and transformation, and expand the market, it can make an application 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 trying to get BUD can hand over a whole agency contract.

Evaluation process and criteria
The application will first be submitted to the BUD Secretariat (implemented by the Hong Kong Productivity Council) to check whether the documents are complete, measure the eligibility of the application, and have 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 amount 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 neighborhood business
Establish or improve the local competitiveness of the applicant company
Substantial results for monitoring or evaluation
Practical actions to develop the neighborhood market
Reasonable, subdivided and justified budget
Priority considerations
Small and medium enterprises (manufacturing industry with significantly less than 100 employees or service industry with less than 50 employees)
The project can be successful in a short time and can become a model for other Hong Kong companies
Synergies in all areas
Use Hong Kong products or services to bring business opportunities to Hong Kong and benefit the Hong Kong economy
The opportunity to fully reflect the advantages of the applicant company and the proposal in line with the evaluation conditions can reduce the doubts and contacts of the BUD secretariat, increase the application process and the opportunity 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 the 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 for example MPF contributions, receipts, invoices, bank statements, tax bills, and lease bills.

*Please note: Only online electronic applications will 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 form fails or the funding is insufficient, the federal government will not be responsible for the remaining costs and the business needs to bear it. Generally speaking, it requires about 3-4 months to apply for BUD Fund.

人類圖
If the BUD Fund application is approved, the company can choose to have the initial funding, which is 75% of the funding amount; if the first funding is not 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 is the balance of the funding. The specific level of interim and final funding depends on the progress of the project and actual expenditure.

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

Read More: https://humandesign.com.hk/