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SINGAPORE: Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) governments should do more to help small and medium-sized enterprises or SMEs grow through regional integration.
That is the call made by the APEC Study Centres Consortium, a group of research institutes dedicated to studying issues in the region.
At a conference held in Singapore on Tuesday, experts said regional groupings like APEC are well-placed to help SMEs.
That is because many challenges facing the SMEs, like high oil prices and the current credit crunch, are global in nature and beyond the grasp of individual nations.
Director of Research at the Asian Development Bank Institute, Dr Mario Lamberte, also said this is one way to distribute the benefits of integration.
Dr Lamberte added: "The benefits will be shared among the SMEs and SMEs comprise 99 per cent of registered enterprises in many of these APEC member economies.
"So politically, it would be palatable to have a process like increasing regional integration that would benefit the SMEs, so you get large support for the process and the reforms would be more acceptable."
It is proposed that APEC sets up an "SME Crisis Management Centre" to help firms get better information, such as changes in demand so as to improve their businesses.
President of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, Dr David Hong, elaborates: "I had a suggestion today, that maybe APEC should set up a crisis management centre for SMEs so we can collect, study and gather all the updated information and then pass that to each country, to their SMEs in a timely manner.
"It is best if it's every week or at least once a month to give the information to the SMEs."
Singapore is hosting a series of APEC meetings, including the high profile Economic Leaders Meeting, this year. - 938LIVE/vm
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