ASEAN to strengthen evidence base to support MSME policy making

JAKARTA, 20 September 2019 – The ASEAN Secretariat held the Workshop on Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Data and Statistics: Strengthening the Evidence Base to Support SME Policymaking at their headquarter in Jakarta yesterday.

The workshop gathered 40 participants, comprising policy makers representing the ASEAN Coordinating Committee on Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (ACCMSME), participants from national statistics organisations representing the ASEAN Community Statistical System (ACSS), experts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and ARISE Plus.

The two-day workshop was held in response to the findings and recommendations of the ASEAN SME Policy Index 2018, a report produced by ACCMSME with support of Canada and OECD which assesses the strengths and weaknesses in SME policy design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation across ASEAN Member States (AMS).

Among others, the report found that data on MSMEs such as the contribution and nature of MSMEs are either missing or not collected systematically. It called for the strengthening of data collection and analysis to ensure development of evidence-based and targeted policies on MSMEs as well as facilitate monitoring and evaluation of policy implementation.

In his opening remarks, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Economic Community Aladdin D. Rillo underscored the need to improve the coordination of statistical activities at the national and regional level, among others through the harmonisation of business registration. He further encouraged governments to take advantage of digital technologies to widen its datasets.

On her part, Ambassador of Canada to ASEAN Diedrah Kelly acknowledged the different characteristics of MSMEs in each AMS and that policies made should not be one-dimensional. In addition, she commended the conduct of the workshop as being in line with Canada’s own practices for creating evidence-based policies.

Destry Anna Sari, Chair of ACCMSME, shared with the workshop the challenges faced by ACCMSME in collecting SME-related data through its past projects and report publications. Meanwhile, Hataichanok Puckcharern, Chair of ACSS Sub-Committee on Planning and Coordination underlined the need for good cooperation and coordination among the line agencies so that the statistics could be produced in high quality in terms of relevance, timeliness, and comparability.

Throughout the workshop, participants shared challenges faced in and best practices on data collection and statistical analysis methods at each AMS. They discussed the importance of understanding the MSME landscape both nationally and regionally and explored considerations for compiling region-wide database modelled after good practices from around the world, including the OECD’s data portal.  The workshop concluded with participants exploring way forward towards strengthening regional collaboration between both sectoral bodies towards producing sustainable data on SMEs.

The workshop was organised with the support of Canada and OECD through the Canada-OECD Project for ASEAN SMEs.