Lee Yi Shyan to attend 19th APEC SME Ministerial Meeting

SINGAPORE: Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Lee Yi Shyan will attend the 19th APEC Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Ministerial Meeting in St Petersburg, Russia.

The APEC SME Ministerial Meeting is an annual platform for ministers responsible for SMEs from the 21 APEC economies.

The theme for this year’s APEC SME Ministerial Meeting, to be held on August 3, is "Promoting SME Cooperation for Innovative Growth in the APEC Region".

The ministers will discuss ways to foster innovative growth in SMEs, support for export—oriented SMEs, internationalisation efforts and support for start—ups and young entrepreneurship.

Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said the meeting is expected to result in the adoption of a joint ministerial statement to reflect the main development trends for SMEs in the APEC region.

MTI said Singapore is actively involved in APEC’s efforts to help SMEs in capacity building and overseas expansion.

Under APEC’s SME Working Group, Singapore’s contributions include developing a compilation of APEC economies’ external trade profiles and designing a training framework for APEC SMEs.

Singapore initiated a study to look at best practices to promote SMEs internationalisation globally.

It also made recommendations for APEC policy makers to address gaps on SME market access and internationalisation.

Mr Lee will be accompanied by officials from MTI and SPRING Singapore.

—CNA/ac