Major Challenges Facing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Asia and Solutions for Mitigating Them

Naoyuki Yoshino () and Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary ()

No 564, ADBI Working Papers from Asian Development Bank Institute

Abstract: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the Asian economy. They make up more than 98% of all Asian businesses that provide two out of three private sector jobs in the region. Therefore, it is vitally important for Asia’s economic success to have fully functioning support measures for SMEs. However, SMEs face challenges from limited access to finance, lack of databases, low R&D expenditures, undeveloped sales channels, and low levels of financial inclusion, which are some of the reasons behind the slow growth of SMEs. This paper focuses on four major reasons that slowed the SME growth in Asia including i) lack of finance, ii) lack of comprehensive databases, iii) low level of R&D expenditures, and iv) insufficient use of information technology and provides remedies for mitigating them.

Keywords: SME databases; financial inclusion; SME investment; R&D expenditure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 G24 G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2016-04-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn, nep-ent, nep-sbm and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0564

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