“The need to better inform SMEs or small and medium-sized enterprises about the developments of the ASEAN Economic Community has been raised repeatedly by high-level ASEAN bodies including the ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting.
The question on how this can be achieved is now slowly being answered.
One of these attempts to answer this question was addessed when representatives from the ASEAN SME Agencies Working Group (SMEWG), the ASEAN Secretariat, and private sector bodies at the regional and national/local levels gathered at a workshop in Jakarta on 16-17 October to discuss options for regional cooperation on providing ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) information to businesses.
The workshop was a continuation of their discussions last June on this issue, prompted by the need to better inform the private sector particularly SMEs about the developments of the AEC as raised repeatedly by high-level ASEAN bodies including the ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) Meeting and by the private sector. The need to better inform the private sector is becoming increasingly important to enable them to better understand and benefit from the AEC.
Speakers provided inputs on relevant cases in ASEAN and cooperation models from the European Enterprise Network (EEN), the ASEAN Regional SME Service Center and the experiences from Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
“The mix of public and private sector participants has actually worked out very well during this workshop to further the work on developing business-friendly AEC materials,” said Ms. Yap Lai Peng, Assistant Director at the ASEAN Secretariat in her closing statement. “The suggestions developed at this workshop will be an important step towards a system for AEC Information,” she added. The SMEWG will further discuss the results at their upcoming meeting in November and decide what actions to take in 2015 as well as beyond.
Mr. Johannes Kerner, First Secretary of Economic Affairs at the German Embassy, signalled that Germany’s support to ASEAN will continue and SME development is considered a key topic for regional integration.
The workshop was co-hosted by Ministry of Cooperatives and SME of Indonesia and the ASEAN Secretariat, and supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH commissioned by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany. (with report from ASEAN Secretariat News)
