Best Practices

The Boracay Action Agenda to Globalize MSMEs encourages economies to provide timely and accurate information on export and import procedures and requirements. Economies agreed to strengthen and promote the usage of trade information portals on goods and services trade. In addition, the APEC Service Competitiveness Roadmap (2016) instructs APEC Economies to develop a set of good practice principles on domestic regulations in the services sector, and subsequently, the APEC Non-binding Principles for Domestic Regulation of the Services Sector (the DR Principles) was endorsed at CSOM 2018.

In light of this background, this survey invites APEC Economies to provide information regarding the regulatory regimes applicable to "online shopping platform services" according to the regulatory principles set out in the DR Principles. Online shopping platform services refer to the provision of internet-based platform (website) services for wholesale and retail products and services mainly by third parties. Four categories of regulatory information are surveyed: 1) licensing requirements and procedures; 2) qualification requirements and procedures; 3) transparency; and 4) business names.

A total of 19 responses were received from APEC Economies (AUS, CDA, CHL, PRC, HKC, INA, JPN, ROK, MAS, MEX, NZ, PE, PHL, RUS, SGP, CT, THA, US, and VN). According to the responses collected, the practices of most Economies are consistent with the DR Disciplines. The DR Principles offer a good benchmark to understand convergences and divergences in related e-commerce regulatory regimes across the APEC region, as well as provide a basis for information- and experience-sharing.

The collated results will be published in the APEC MSME Marketplace with a view to facilitating e-commerce through enhanced regulatory transparency and predictability.

Hong Kong, China made a presentation introducing their network of government and quasi-government support centres for SMEs. These centers serve to look after SMEs' needs in their establishment and operation in the form of information and advisory services of Support and Consultation Centre for SMEs ("SUCCESS") run by the Trade and Industry Department, enhancement of business operation by the IT solution services of Hong Kong Productivity Council's "SME One" and "Inno Space", and market expansion by the export market-oriented services of the Hong Kong Trade and Development Council's "SME Centre".

Hong Kong, China's (HKC) presentation focused on their multi-folded support measures to enhance the competitiveness of its SMEs for their greater participation in the Global Value Chains.  These measures included the promotion activities by the Hong Kong Trade and Development Council to enable SMEs to explore and connect with the global market; funding support to assist SMEs to upgrade their business and innovate; promoting research and development and their commercialisation; and providing infrastructure and other institutional support to facilitate the movement of goods across borders.

Aimed at helping develop or improve Trade Promotion Organisations’ services to better support women-led SMEs access global markets. Phase one of the project in 2014/15 identified the barriers women exporters face and developed a set of best practices and lessons that can be adapted to the individual circumstances of APEC economies. In 2016 and 2017, in phase two of the project, Australia is providing assistance to targeted economies to address economy specific barriers.

The project is identified as one of the existing efforts undertaken by APEC in promoting digital economy. Five O2O serial events held in Malaysia, Chinese Taipei, Viet Nam and the Philippines in 2017, expected to establish an expert network, formulate the APEC SME digital resilience training guidebook, enhance SMEs’ capabilities to seize digital opportunities and well prepare for the challenges via cross fora collaboration.

Initiative funded by Canada that intended to foster economic growth and reduce poverty in APEC developing economies by building the potential of MSMEs and aspiring entrepreneurs. The initiative has 2 components: C$2M APEC MSME Sub-Fund and C$2.49M for research and training project under the coordination of Asia Pacific Foundation. Asia Pacific Foundation collaborates with APEC in the following areas: (i) Sharing best practices, (ii) Finding common points on project collaboration, (iii) Highlighting new ideas to explore and expand, (iv) Identifying common interests and build on them, (vi) Extending and complimenting other projects with common goals.

The 4th APEC Business Ethics for SMEs Forum to be held in Hanoi, Viet Nam on 7-8 September 2017. The goals of the forum include: (i) specialized capacity building mentoring to ensure all economies have relevant industry codes in place by 2020, (ii) increase the number of member economies with public-private framework agreements to facilitate high-standard ethical business practices across national health systems, and (iii) strengthen ethical business practices for distributors and other third party intermediaries as vital enterprises in the medical device and biopharmaceutical sectors.

Hong Kong, China made a presentation on the economy's support measures provided to SMEs in the creative industries, with a focus on the design sector. These include all-round support to nurture design start-ups through the Design Incubation Programme; revitalized decommissioned buildings to provide space for design studies and exhibition and art venues; and funding support through the CreateSmartInitiative to promote the development of the industries. Altogether, the support measures facilitate SMEs in the field to grow and establish their business in both locally and overseas.

Hong Kong, China's best practice sharing focused on support for innovative start-ups, especially Fintec start-ups. Supporting start-ups was an important part of Hong Kong, China's drive to develop innovation and technology for the economy. A broad range of measures were adopted such as enhancing existing start-up incubation programmes, introducing new programmes, reducing general and specific taxes, and improving SME funding schemes to enable start-ups to benefit as well.

Hong Kong, China's (HKC) sharing focused on their support for SMEs in the internet and digital economy.  Some of the measures included incubation programmes to nurture start-ups in the ICT field and mobile app business; opening up government and public data for entrepreneurship and making land available for the development of data centres; providing support and setting up dedicated institutions for assisting SMEs to upgrade, innovate and adopt technological solutions; and training and educating SMEs to increase their knowledge and know-how of the internet and digital economy.