SME group to highlight success - APEC/ABAC - The Challenges Ahead - Brief Article

Business Asia, May, 2002 by Randolph Ramsay

ABAC's Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) Task Force will identify small business success stories in 2002 as a way of showing APEC economies how to do things right by SMEs, task force chair Andrina Lever says.

Lever says the focus for 2002 will be to identify those economies that are doing the most to promote and enhance the growth of their SMEs.

"What we're hoping to do this year is rather than rehash old territory that we've seen and done before, we want to look at what positive things are currently happening out there," she said.

"Some economies have done an awful lot to promote and enhance SME development. What we want to do is lead by example -- show what works and what should be working."

Lever, president and CEO of Canada's Lever Enterprises, says there are numerous examples of countries developing programs that bring massive benefit to small businesses, and not just from APEC's developed members.

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that some economies and cultures are just much more entrepreneurial than others," she said. "Some economies are just culturally more conservative. What we hope to do is look at what even some of the lesser-developed economies are doing to promote SME development in their own area.

"A couple of examples that came up at our last meeting in Vancouver were from Peru and Malaysia. Those were really quite interesting.

"Some of the other economies have got different examples of what they've done to make it more attractive to invest in small companies, and for larger companies to outsource and contract.

"Chinese Taipei have done a very good job of fostering SMEs. They have technology parks, they also created systems were it was very attractive to invest in and foster SMEs. Chinese Taipei is definitely a culture that has moved ahead and has been very successful in fostering the development and growth of SMEs, as well as encouraging their talented expats to come home and invest."

SME aware

Lever says all of the APEC members were aware of the importance SMEs played in their economies' health, with awareness of their particular problems and challenges growing every year.

"The issues are known and are quite common -- it's just the degree to which an economy or a company within a economy would face those challenges, depending on a lot of economic, political and ethnic reasons," she said.

"I think that people have begun to realise that what is good for SMEs is good for the economy.

"All SMEs worldwide face the same challenges. The five challenges that SMEs face are what we call the access issues -- access to technology, finance, human resource development, training and information, and market. The question is to what degree an SME will face these challenges within their own particular economy."

Tough task

While awareness of the issues is definitely high, Lever says actually initiating APEC-wide policies for the benefit of SMEs can still be a daunting task.

"Everybody in APEC/ABAC recognises what the issues are. The problem is to get Ministers to agree -- it ends up being quite watered down because whatever they agree on has to apply equally to the least developed as it does to the most developed," she said. Lever is hopeful, however, that the examples the SME Task force will highlight this year will strike a chord with APEC governments.

"I think the key point is that SMEs are recognised as being the engines of growth for economies. They are more and more recognised as the job creators. And that they are the seedbed from which large business grow," she said.

RELATED ARTICLE: SME task force goals.

In their recommendations to APEC last year, ABAC's SME Task Force reiterated the importance SMEs played in an economy, and called for more support from APEC governments.

The recommendations stated: "SMEs form the backbone of all APEC economies, creating jobs, fostering innovation and developing new products and services. The full participation of SMEs in the APEC process is therefore essential. It is critical that every APEC economy take steps to support its small business community, enabling these `business champions' to realise the benefits of trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation. ABAC recommends that economies assist these `business champions' in obtaining the necessary tools to do the job, through better access to financing, technology and new market opportunities."

Specifically, the SME Task Force called for initiatives to.

* Promote one-window access to SME programs and services;

* Promote access to technological innovation;

* Promote access to financing for SMEs; and

* Adopt policies that are "Small Business-Friendly".