Asia's Developing Future

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of Asia’s economies. The Asian Development Bank’s most recent SME survey covered 20 countries in Central, East, South, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific and showed that SMEs accounted for an average of 96% of all enterprises and 62% of the national labor force. SMEs contributed an average of 42% of the gross domestic product or manufacturing value added in these countries, and continued to influence trade. The latest data show that SMEs in the People’s Republic of China and India accounted for more than 40% of total export value, followed by 26% in Thailand, 19% in the Republic of Korea, and 16% in Indonesia. Yet their development is hindered because of the difficulty accessing affordable credit. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2CbsUEl Read the working paper https://www.adb.org/publications/solutions-smes-difficulties-accessing-finance-asian-experiences About the authors Naoyuki Yoshino is dean of ADBI Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary is an assistant profe