OSMEP is confident that APEC SMEs Meetings will alleviate Thai’s SME participation in Global Supply Chain.

As Thailand will host the upcoming APEC 2022 and one of the main topic of cooperation will be to support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The Government has tasked the Office of Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion (OSMEP) to take the lead in hosting the 28th APEC SME Ministerial Meeting, the 54th APEC SME Working Group Meeting and related activities under the theme “Open. Connect. Balance.” which will be held during 5 – 10 September 2022, in Phuket.

APEC is an important forum to support economic cooperation, including 21 major economies which has a combined GDP of more than U$D 53 trillion or more than half of the World GDP, to come and meet for the best economic way forward.

This is a golden opportunity for Thailand to showcase its potential and capabilities in driving the economy from the primary, secondary and tertiary levels during the covid-19 pandemic over the past two years.

Assoc. Professor Dr. Veerapong Malai, Director General of OSMEP, revealed that the main goal for OSMEP is to play a strategic role in order to safeguard Thailand interests and SME business in the multilateral forum to create opportunities for SMEs to gain better access to finance, global markets, and to keep up with new challenges for a better living standard for all.

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“Our aim is to safeguard the interests of Thailand and SME business, and to link Thai entrepreneurs with alliance in the Asia Pacific region in order to increase economic opportunities and strengthen the link leading to become part of the Global Supply Chain.”

Additionally, this meeting in Phuket will be a golden opportunity to showcase the Thailand’ssoft power in important travel destinations, heritage and culture to the World to experience.  In Phuket alone, there are 42,598 SME operators and more than 59% are from the service industry, especially in the tourism related activities such as hotels, resorts, restaurants. With the wide variety of natural beauty all over Thailand combined with the unique Thai traditional heritage these can generate a lot of income each year.

The main theme of the APEC SME Meeting is the Bio-Circular-Green Economy Model (BCG Model) focusing on “Inclusive Recovery of APEC MSMEs through BCG & High Impact Ecosystem” taking into account the climate change and sustainability which is the global current trend right now.

“With no less than 20 SME operators who will be given the opportunity to exhibit their specialties on food, textiles-clothing, handicrafts and home decoration etc. in accordance with the BCG Model throughout the entire period of the Meeting to the international market.”

“Delegates and Associates will also visit 2 districts of importance; namely the Phuket Old Town, rich in Chino-Portuguese architecture and the 200 years old Baan Bang Rong community in Talang which formed a highly successful agro-tourism conservation group and became popular with both local and foreign tourists alike” revealed Dr. Veerapong.

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In order to ensure a greater success for this Meeting, OSMEP has integrated full cooperation with Phuket Municipality and other units within and outside the province such as TAT, AOT, Phuket Chamber of Commerce, Provincial Tourism and Sports as co-hosts to ensure maximum benefits to the Thai SME.

“The outcome from this Meeting will give Thailand a clear direction to develop and support SME operators for quick and comprehensive recovery, sustainability, be able to face new challenges and to become part of the greater economy in a more efficient way” Dr. Veerapong concluded.

Interested individual and operator can follow this Meeting at: https://apecsme2002.SME.go.th  or from OSMEP facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/officeofsmes