The government needs to enhance capability of small and medium enterprises through entrepreneurial development and incubation programs in order to fully maximize and grow their businesses, a senior official has said.
Kasan Muhri, head of Trade Analysis and Development Agency at the Trade Ministry, said if local companies can maximize know-how and technological skills by linking with the transnational companies (TNCs), they can build their own capacities based on these incentives and even expand their businesses by using the TNC’s networks.
“The government needs also to strengthen the regulatory working environment to expand employment, upgrade technology and contribute to global value chains,” Kasan added.
Aside from that, the government also needs to develop science, technology and innovation infrastructure to enable companies to build more efficient business practices, he emphasized.
Kasan raised those points during a webinar organized by ASEAN-Japan Center (AJC) on May 27, 2021, in response to AJC’s paper titled “Non-Equity Modes of Trade in ASEAN: Promoting new forms of trade between Japan and ASEAN: Paper 3 Indonesia”.
According to the paper, non-equity modes (NEMs) of trade in Indonesia is foreseen to potentially play a role in expanding opportunities to participate in global value chains and are critical for inclusive economic development especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In general, Kasan added, host country governments prefer equity modes (EMs) to NEMs, because EMs give higher level of commitment and bigger impact of the foreign presence to the performance of local economy.
He added non-equity modes are essentially contractual modes, such as leasing, licensing, franchising and management-service contracts.
A smaller degree of ownership means lower commitment on the investment. It shows strategic policy to mitigate business risk in host country. The higher the business risks faced by foreign investor the lower the level of commitment an investor has, he added.
Data shows, Indonesia is the seventh largest economy in the world, and one-third of the country’s economy is contributed by investments.
Contract-based business or NEMs in Indonesia exists in natural rubber industries in the form of contract farming, in footwear industry through outsourcing and subcontracting, in fast-food and convenience stores through franchising, and in international hotel chains through management contracts or licensing agreements.
The enforcement of Law No. 11/2020 on Jobs Creation aims to ease the main obstacles to investing in Indonesia, and benefits also NEMs by attracting investors to Indonesia with the expected ease of doing business in the country.
NEMs present opportunities that are not found in foreign direct investment (FDI). For example, it is an attractive choice for international brand owners and TNCs considering their flexibility to enter the Indonesian market through contractual agreements with local companies.
To meet TNCs’ standards, local companies are expected to be equipped with management and technological skills and capacity. However, as transnational corporations can easily terminate contracts, a long-term deal is not guaranteed particularly when the quality of goods and services does not meet the TNC’s standards.
While FDI may have a better advantage than NEMs in terms of bringing in capital, NEMs expand the operational methods to have local Indonesian firms engaged in international networks of production.
Source: MadeInIndonesia.com
Original published date: 02 June, 2021
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Source: The Nation Thailand
Photo Credit: Bangkok Post
Source: Bangkok Post / Reuters
The Export-Import Bank of Thailand (Exim Bank) wants to boost the number of Thai SMEs exporting products abroad from the current level of 30,000 to 100,000 within the next four years.
Thailand has an estimated 6 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), of which 3.1 million are registered and 2.7 million are informal, according to Exim Bank managing director Rak Vorrakitpokatorn.
These entrepreneurs compete in a market of just 70 million people, where yearly GDP growth is a modest 2 per cent over the past 10 years, Rak said. Also, only 1 per cent of Thai SMEs are exporters, compared to more than 10 per cent in competitor countries.
“The Thai economy is growing at an average of 2 per cent per year, while the country has become an ageing society,” he said.
Compared to neighbours such as Vietnam and Indonesia which have far younger populations, with 60-70 per cent of people of working age, Thailand has little potential because the market is small, said Rak. “Boosting sales is difficult, so what we should do is go to the international market.”
Thai SMEs can plug into the international trade cycle in two ways, Rak said.
The first is to upgrade to an exporter – which may require time in order to build knowledge and experience in various fields.
The second way, which can be done immediately, is via the exporter's supply chain.
“Many Thai SMEs are already part of the exporter supply chain in one way or another. This is because 70 per cent of Thailand’s total export value relies on domestic raw materials,” said Rak.
Source: The Nation Thailand
According to Agriwatch.com, the Indian government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to import matpe (bean) and pigeon pea from Malawi, a landlocked country in Africa and Myanmar.
About 250,000 tonnes of matpe (bean) will be imported from Myanmar, and 100,000 tonnes of pigeon pea will be imported from Malawi under a government-to-government contract.
Agriwatch.com quoted market sources as saying that the two types of pulses are intended to be imported annually and are planned to be purchased for five years.
Demand for pulses has risen since the Indian government recently changed its domestic demand for pulses and changed its import policy.
Although Last week, the price of red bean was lower, but Prices have risen due to the lowering domestic stocks; Increasing foreign demand; increasing demand from India and Pakistan.
On June 9, the price of a basket of Irrawaddy beans was 35,800 kyats, but on June 16, it rose to 37,170 kyats per basket, according to data from the Ayeyarwaddy Trade Center.
However, market observers say that while the Indian government will also make G-to-G contracts, the price of Burmese pulses may rise, but it is unlikely that the price will rise too much due to the underlying price controls based on Indian domestic prices.
Source: BETV Business (https://www.betvbusiness.com/mm/cheaangp/1228)
Photo: BETV Business
Originally published Date - 17.6.2021
With regard to B2B global e-commerce business, Widiatmoko said, the presence of warehouse or fulfillment center is very crucial. The warehouse for Indonesian products in Manila, for example, will speed up the distribution of those products when there are orders from Manila.
“Demand [for Indonesian products] from Manila will quickly be fulfilled by the fulfillment center,” he said at a recent Virtual Trade Show Indonesia-Philippines 2021 organized by MadeinIndonesia.com and Philippine Business Club Indonesia.
Whenever there are orders or demands for Indonesian products from consumers in the Philippines, they don’t have to wait shipment directly from Indonesia. The Filipino consumers can receive Indonesian products much quicker as they are taken from the inventories at the warehouse.
Trade Attache at Indonesian Embassy in Manila, Lazuardi Nasution, has expressed his agreement with the idea to build warehouse or fulfillment center of Indonesian products in Manila.
“Once, I had thought of the idea to build a warehouse. I later shared the idea to Indonesian community or diaspora in Manila. Unfortunately, they were not enthusiastic,” he said at the same event.
As part of the Thai government’s consistent support for R&D and scaling innovation in food technology, advanced agriculture and biotechnology, the country houses integrated R&D centres linking the public sector’s high-quality facilities with universities and private sector labs. Central to the network is Food Innopolis, an integrated food innovation complex located at the Thailand Science Park, Pathum Thani Province. Under the supervision of the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), the complex offers comprehensive services to R&D and business development, ranging from rental space for laboratory facilities, sourcing personnel and technical assistance in R&D and business development as well as applying for approvals for entrepreneurs from Food and Drug Administration. Food Innopolis also offers networking and knowledge sharing services to members and easy access to the public sector’s facilities in food technology, food standardization and food testing.
Philippines commits to deepen commercial ties with Switzerland, calls for greater utilization of FTA
The Philippines (PH) reaffirmed its commitment to expand two-way trade and investment ties with Switzerland (CH) and deepen cooperation in cleantech and renewable energy, infrastructure, life sciences and digital healthcare sectors ahead of the fourth Joint Economic Commission (JEC) to be held this week and the 65th anniversary of PH-CH diplomatic relations next year.
“We enjoin Swiss businesses…to look closer in the Philippines and assess the merits of investing into the country given the set of incentives that we offer, matched with unparalleled abundance and cost efficiency of labor and of course, access to strategic markets,” Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo said during the virtual business forum entitled “Philippines and Switzerland: Investing Together for a Better Future.”
Despite the pandemic, bilateral trade between the Philippines and Switzerland rose to USD 764M in 2020 and Philippine exports to the European country rose 8% over the same period, said Usec. Rodolfo. Over the last five years, approved investments from Switzerland reached P1B as Swiss entities like Nestle, Franke Food Service, and CHAMP Cargosystems, among many others, continue to thrive and make it happen in the Philippines.
“Next year, we will celebrate the 65th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship and we build upon a good trade and investment relationship. We have been doing this relationship with you [since 1956], but if I look at our trade and investment bonds, they date back way more than a century [before] we started the diplomatic relationship,” said Alain Gaschen, Swiss Ambassador to the Philippines.
“I would really like to take this forum to convince anyone out there that investing in the Philippines is not only something that will help your business, it will also be something that could help the country,” Dr. Urs Lustenberger, President of the Swiss-Asian Chamber of Commerce said. “The Philippines is a great place, has fantastic people – a hundred million of them – which provides not only a market for themselves [but also] a good base for expansion into Asia.”
Priority Investment Sectors
Three breakout sessions were held in parallel to focus on the Philippines’ priority investment sectors. One of these sectors geared for closer collaboration is clean technology and renewable energy (RE), which is especially relevant as the Philippines seeks to increase the share of renewables to more than half of power generation mix by 2040. The investment opportunities in RE lie in upstream development, generation, retail, transmission, and distribution, according to Mylene C. Capongcol, Director, Department of Energy.
The breakout session was led by David Avery, Head of Cleantech at Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) and featured insights from Marc Krebs, co-founder of Tide Ocean and Romil Jagunap, General Manager of DKSH Philippines.
Similarly, Swiss organizations can look into supporting the development of the Philippine infrastructure sector. Switzerland is a donor and shareholder of the Asian Development Bank since 1967, helping the Manila-based multilateral lender finance the growth aspirations of countries like the Philippines.
The break-out session was led by Patrick Renz, Board Member of Asian Developmen Bank (ADB) and Kelly Bird, Country Director of ADB. It featured insights from Department of Transportation Undersecretary Timothy John R. Batan and Michele Molinari, Member and CEO of Molinari Rail as well as a testimonial from Christophe Lejeune, General Manager of SIKA Philippines.
Health is another sector that can benefit from Swiss expertise, especially as the pandemic highlighted the urgent need to digitize and increase the resilience of the healthcare system.
The discussion was led by Dr. Dennis Ostwald, CEO at WifOR Institute, Sonja Haut, Head Strategic Measurement and Materiality at Novartis, and facilitated by Dr. Stephan Mumenthaler, Director General at ScienceIndustries. It featured insights from Jeff Williams of the Health Information Management Association of the Philippines, Diana Cortesi of Basel Area Business & Innovation, and Dr. Raymond Sarmiento of the National Telehealth Center.
Improving PH-EFTA Utilization
Swiss companies looking to expand their markets can leverage the PH-European Free Trade Association (PH-EFTA) free trade deal that was signed in 2018. Before the deal came into force, Swiss companies paid USD 10.5M in duties on USD 226.7M in exports per annum in 2017, according to an analysis by Professor Patrick Ziltener of the University of Zürich.
“In 2018, the year prior to entry into force of the PH-EFTA, we had a trade deficit vis-à-vis the EFTA countries to the tune of about USD 61 million. On the first full year of implementation in 2019, we turned that around so we already had a surplus of USD 47M,” said Usec. Rodolfo, adding that the experience was similar when the country’s bilateral FTA with Japan came into force.
When the deal came into effect in 2018, Swiss companies exporting to the Philippines managed to save roughly USD 234,000, but still shelled out USD 7M in duties, Ziltener’s study shows. In 2019, the year completely covered by the FTA, the utilization rate of PH-EFTA was around 14% and low on a product-by-product basis, with food preparation and pharma having low utilization rates, while textiles, many metal products, and machines at 0%. “Utilization to increase over time…but proactive information campaign seems necessary,” Ziltener noted.
In a separate study, Ambassador Markus Schlagenhof, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, cited how Philippine exporters to Switzerland saved roughly half a million Swiss francs in 2019 thanks to PH-EFTA, translating to a 24% savings rate. Swiss companies exporting to the Philippines saved CHF 1.3M or 20% savings rate over the same period.
“We all agree these rates are still very low but the agreement is also very young…and the potential is still largely underutilized. I am confident that when economic cooperators learn more about this agreement, we further have to promote it, in a couple years’ time, it certainly will be much higher than it is right now,” Schlagenhof said.
The webinar was organized by the Philippine Trade and Investment Center in Bern together with the DTI Board of Investments, Philippines-Swiss Business Council, and the Swiss Embassy in Manila in coordination with Switzerland Global Enterprise and the Swiss-Asian Chamber of Commerce. It is part of an ongoing initiative to start a conversation on rebooting the economy through investments in targeted sectors.
Source: www. dti.gov.ph
Originally published last June 18, 2021.
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