New SME policy in pipeline

via CAAI

Friday, 10 December 2010 15:00 Rann Reuy

A NEW policy document aimed at lifting the performance of small and medium enterprises will be released early next year, the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy announced this week.

Nouv Borey, deputy director of the ministry’s Department of Small Industry and Handicafts, said the document would outline steps that officials and the private sector could take to work together.

“The document will become a road-map for indicating the development of SMEs in Cambodia in the future,” he told the Post by phone.

It would be a collaboration between the ministry and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, private sector groups, and the Ministries of Commerce, Economy and Finance, Tourism, and Agriculture.

Phok Sovanarith, secretary of state for the ministry, said SMEs in Cambodia accounted for 99 percent of all enterprises in Cambodia, but were not yet positioned to adequately support the needs of larger industries.

He said the competiveness of SMEs remained limited, with hurdles including legal and regulatory frameworks, and access to financing, innovation and technology.

Heng Heang, president of the SME Association in Phnom Penh, said he supported the new policy document if it could help to improve the work of SMEs.

Kobayashi Yukiharu, senior representative of JICA in Cambodia, said SMEs throughout the world played very important roles in social and economic development, because the sector absorbed a large portion of the national workforce.