The Missing (Small) Businesses of Southeast Asia
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • There are more than 70 million micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Southeast Asia today that employ over 140 million people and account for 99% of all businesses in the region. • However, there appear to be many “missing businesses,” with significant underre...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
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ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute
2020
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| Online Access: | https://www.iseas.edu.sg/category/articles-commentaries/iseas-perspective-2020/ http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80486 |
| Summary: | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• There are more than 70 million micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
in Southeast Asia today that employ over 140 million people and account for 99%
of all businesses in the region.
• However, there appear to be many “missing businesses,” with significant underreporting and very low figures of SMEs on a per capita basis. As many as 80-90%
of SMEs in some countries may be excluded from official counts.
• This may be due to the existence of a large informal business sector which is not
monitored in many countries; poor data collection methods; or economies being less
entrepreneurial SME-focused than elsewhere.
• Measuring the true size of the SME sector is difficult because there are no standard
definitions across the region, and the quality of published data varies significantly
among states.
• Governments across the region should consider working through ASEAN to adopt
a standardised set of SME definitions and reporting frameworks. This will help
identify where the unreported SMEs currently exist. |
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