Delegates attending the 45th APEC SME Working Group Meeting. Photo: MPI

APEC has grown to become a tremendous dynamic region with vibrant international economic integration. SMEs currently account for 98% of total enterprises in the region and have been played an important part of economic development and employment generation, is a significant source of innovation, and the engine for economic growth in the Asia Pacific region. Many innovative goods and many services for SMEs and startups bring great added value, high efficiency, change a lot of traditional ways by that life has been going on.

Through APEC, SMEs have gained much knowledge, legislation in line with international economic practices. However, many SMEs are still struggling weak competitiveness. Therefore, APEC economies and SMEs jointly promote their own internal strengths through enhancing effective governance, facilitating technological innovation in priority access to finance, openning up new market opportunities meanwhile ensuring an enabling environment for doing business.

With the advances made in digital technology today and the drastic changes brought about by the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, they will create new opportunities for new way of development of SMEs. This requires the SMEs support agencies to keep up with the trend and to formulate appropriate supportive measures to promote SMEs development.

The Meeting focuses on discussion on good examples of entrepreneurship, innovation and access finance, business ecosystems and market access for SMEs development. Exchanges and discussions at the meeting contributed to foster our shared future in APEC region that SMEs is the driving forces in the context of rapid developments in digital economies. Delegates discussed potentials for practical cooperation and most importantly identify prioritized areas to strengthen SMEs the competitiveness throughout the APEC region, therefore set track for SMEs in the APEC economies to start up and to grow robustly in right direction./.