the observation that the second most valuable intervention had been technical assistance to exporting companies such as help in designing marketing brochures upgrading labelling and packaging to meet international expectations and developing new and better products has led the assessment team to conclude that financial support and technical assistance are more powerful in combination with finance providing incentives and technical assistance helping ensure efficient use of the funds some loans from mif seem to have had a very substantial positive impact on the firms that received them for example freshpikt a canned fruit and vegetables manufacturer reported that it would not have survived without the usd initial loan it received from matep which in turn positioned the company to receive a much larger loan from the zambia state insurance corporation zsic