SME Corporation and PNG APEC Authority successfully facilitated a policy dialogue workshop on MSME Internationalization and the APEC 47th SME Working Group Meeting in September this year. The policy dialogue workshop on SME Internationalization that ran from 10-11th September 2018 was an APEC funded project related to the implementation of the Boracay Action Agenda to Globalize MSMEs. The workshop was the first of two planned activities under the 2018 SME Working Group Work Plan that were implemented by Papua New Guinea through SME Corporation, the APEC SME Working Group focal point. The second deliverable was the 47th SME Working Group Meeting that took place on 12-13th September 2018.

APEC’s Small and Medium Enterprises Working Group (SMEWG) works to encourage the development of SMEs and build their capacity to engage in international trade.

The two-day workshop that took place in the International Convention Centre in Port Moresby featured local, regional and international experts on SME Internationalization. The aim of the policy dialogue was to share best practices and identify areas that needs to be addressed to support the competitiveness and internationalization of MSMEs.

Although APEC has done considerable work in both areas of SME development and internationalization, direct participation of MSMEs in regional and global trade is still a challenge. Only medium enterprises and small enterprise benefit from global value chains. Micro enterprises lack the sophistication to participate in global value chains or direct exports due to cumbersome rules and procedures. Extra effort must be made to enable MSMEs to go global and participate in free trade because they account for more than 97 percent of all enterprises and employ more than half of the region’s workforce.

Research academics, policy makers, MSME experts and international financing institutions from APEC economies not only shared challenges and best practices but identified gaps and strategized ways to achieve the Boracay Action Agenda. The highlight of the workshop was the breakaway session where participants discussed and presented ten preliminary challenges and ways forward to better achieve the Eight Priority Action Areas under the Boracay Action Agenda.

The preliminary outcomes are;

1. Closer collaborations between trade agencies, multinational enterprises and MSMEs.
2. Facilitation of Standardization Procedures in the Supply Chains.
3. Risk aversion by both financial lending institutions and MSMEs.
4. Lack of skilled workforce engaged SME sectors.
5. The need to gauge more political will/support for SME development.
6. Multi-sectorial collaboration between all stakeholders involved in MSME development.
7. Linkages between large businesses and MSMEs
8. Creation of regional financing for MSMEs
9. Public procurement to be equally distributed between MNEs and MSMEs.
10. Minimizing transaction costs of MSMEs.

In this digital age, only a few MSMEs in Papua New Guinea have gone ahead to sell online and have customers in other parts of the world. How do we ensure these MSMEs, both registered and unregistered participate in the global market?

The Policy Dialogue workshop on Sharing Best Practices in Building Institutional Capacities to Promote Internationalization of MSMEs and Developing Competitiveness of MSMEs to go Global enabled Papua New Guinea to identify best practices which can be localized into the Papua New Guinea SME Policy 2016-2030.

Whether as a participant to global value chains, or a direct exporter of goods and services, or a start-up, APEC through SME Corporation as the SMEWG Focal Point and Mandated Statutory Authority to Implement the SME Policy 2016, will continue to be an enabler of global MSMEs through specific actions to address barriers to their internationalization.