Participation and benefits of SMEs in GVCs in Southeast Asia

Abstract

This paper is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and the arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of OECD countries. The publication of this paper has been authorised by Ken Ash, Director of the Trade and Agriculture Directorate. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. This document has been declassified on the responsibility of the Working Party of the Trade Committee under the OECD reference number TAD/TC/WP(2018)9/FINAL.

Services imports and labour in Viet Nam

“…Similarly, efforts to facilitate SMEs' indirect participation in trade and to address information asymmetries as well as training programmes to promote SMEs' use of digital technologies can help to level the playing field between small and large firms. In addition, steps towards greater regulatory harmonisation within ASEAN could ease constraints on SMEs' trade participation (López González, Munro, Gourdon, Mazzini, & Andrenelli, 2019). Trade facilitation measures can enable Vietnamese SMEs to exploit untapped potential by making better use of foreign services.…”

Integration into regional or global value chains and economic upgrading prospects: an analysis of the East African Community (EAC) bloc

“…This means that a stronger focus on local content in terms of domestic value creation (increased local resource use and productivity increase) is important for participation in regional or global value chains. Opportunities offered within regional blocs such as trade liberalization through preferential trade agreements, lowering of trade costs, and harmonization of trade policies and practices offer potentials for the participation in regional or global value chains and the path to economic upgrading, one of the sources of competitiveness in trade [3,50,51]. However, in order for economic upgrading (domestic value creation) to take place within the framework of regional bloc such as the EAC, the following factors are discussed in the literature:…”

“…FDI brings skills and technologies that help to engage in the production of new and more sophisticated goods, leading to the competitiveness of domestic manufacturers in the regional bloc. In addition, FDIs and the activities of multinational companies in host countries serve as a channel for integrating SMEs into global markets, thereby increasing also their exports [51,52]. Similarly, FDIs coming within the regional bloc fosters business networks, and forward and backward links with local firms, contributing to smoother technological spillover due to low technology gaps [53].…”

Spurring growth and closing gaps through digitalisation in a post-COVID world: Policies to LIFT all boats

“… Business registration data indicate a large fall in business creation in some countries, at least in the early phases of the crisis (OECD, 2020 [15]). This is worrying as start-ups are often a catalyst for radical innovation, with significant contributions to aggregate productivity and employment growth (Klenow and Li, 2020 [110]; OECD, 2020 [15]). Compared with the year before, new business registrations in the first half of 2020 were down in Germany, France, Belgium and Iceland, but not in Norway, Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands (OECD, 2021 [111]).…”