SMEs quintessentially play an active role in fostering income equality and ensuring that benefits from technological change and globalization are more broadly shared for the benefit of all to the remotest villages.

SMEs contributed an estimated 34% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016. Though mostly informal, SMEs are engines of employment creation, generating 80% of new jobs annually. This makes many governments at both national and local levels recognize the SME sector as a priority area for additional support and development.

It is instructive to further note that SMEs form the base from which many successful national, regional, or global brands have emerged over the years. Many of the successful companies we see today started as SMEs before they became large companies and or multinational corporations.

There is a robust SME ecosystem in the region ranging from legislation to policy framework. However, major challenges that hinder the sustainable growth of SMEs to global acclaim and competition remain. These include but are not limited to challenges on the quality of growth and sustainability but also mapping what has worked and has the potential for scaling up. Within the SME ecosystem, examining the funding outlook (access to affordable blended finance), technical skills and tailored training for competitive productivity and sustainability, emerging insights/research, and knowledge pool to support SMEs, overall operating environment (competition, legislation, taxation, and other professional support services), and technology (rapid changes in technology adoption and local relevance).