ASEAN Small Business Competitiveness Program

One of the greatest obstacles to dispersed numbers of micro and small enterprise entrepreneurs is lack of access to information on how to operate and grow their businesses. Given their size and limited capital, as well as an often wide geographic dispersion, such enterprises can be hard to reach. For-cost training programmes and even no-cost trainingsby government tend to focus on larger enterprise participants. Across the Asia region there are common areas of operation by MSMEs, both in terms of services or manufacturing. Given this commonality, there exist a common set of good practices that can be shared, listed in simple formats for consideration and adaptation by local companies. In this way, a small business providing motorcycle repair services in Vietnam would benefit from the same or similar good practice and management tools as would a similarly focused enterprise in the Philippines. Yet, while development projects and government agencies have developed some such tools for specific sectors, these are often locked into one country’s language, available only in printed format, out of print following the end of a project, or limited in scope. At the moment, there is no one location or source where, across ASEAN, small business owners can find guides on running their specific business, examples of business startup strategies or business plans, example budgets, or good practice guides. Objective Providing a set of tools for countries across ASEAN to develop and upgrade specific /micro small business in common sectors, providing entrepreneurs and those who work with them guidance on how to establish, run and improve the business – boosting competitiveness and improving services. At least 8 set of tools of the common sectors would be developed, depending on the preliminary study done at the start of the project: 1. By the end of first phase of the project, at least 8 full set of tools would be available; and 2. By the end of the second phase, tools would be translated and disseminated in ASEAN Member States.

Project symbol

RAS/12/09/JAI

Admin unit

CO-Jakarta

Start date

01/09/2013

End date

30/06/2015

Total allocation

350907

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

327138

Development Partners

Japan-Asean Integration Fund Program, Indonesia

Country/Countries

Indonesia

Outcomes

More and better jobs for inclusive growth and improved youth employment prospects