Cushioning the Financial Blow for Global Small Businesses

©iStock/imtmphoto

Developing-market small and midsize enterprises (SMEs), which have long competed for funding against bigger corporations, are counting on help from governments and multilateral lenders to keep afloat. 

Full recovery from the Covid-19 crisis will be critical for three developing regions – Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East and it will come with challenges. 

According to a 2018 research paper by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), SMEs accounted for 96% of all businesses and provided two out of three private sector jobs in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. And in that region, SMEs generated 42% of GDP in 2015. These companies are especially important players in APAC cross-border trade, accounting as of 2015 for over 40% of export values in China and India, 26% in Thailand, 19% in South Korea and 16% in Indonesia.

Learn more about global small businesses and the big challenges they face.