SME Integration into ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)

The training program will highlight the importance of ASEAN and the facilitation of the AEC integration process via a better understanding of business development service providers and SME exporters of Cambodia in utilizing FTA in their businesses. The program will focus on the current state-of-play in international trade and will allow participants to develop a deeper understanding of ASEAN, the FTA status as well as emerging trade issues of FTAs in Cambodian Context.

Objectives:

• To increase understanding of the regional SME context in Cambodia and the significance of AEC on SME growth and development in Cambodia;
• To understand the existing FTA across Cambodia, i.e. tariff lines under sensitive lists/ negative lists/ excluded lists as per regional importance;
• To understand the importance of FTA and its utilization procedure in regional and international trade and how to promote the utilization of FTAs by the SMEs; and
• To identify emerging impediments in utilizing FTAs beyond tariff reduction i.e. SPS/ TBT/ MRA/ IPR/ government procurement/ trade facilitation, RoO etc.

Outcomes:

This training course will be beneficial to SMEs to deepen their understanding and improve their knowledge with the necessary skills towards appreciating the need for Cambodian SMEs to upgrade in the regional and global value chain via integrating themselves into the AEC. Some of the specific outcome of the program would be:

• Emphasizing positive impacts from the integration on daily life activities of general public to increase attention and participation from individuals and SMEs;
• Assisting the policy makers to appreciate the pain points of SMEs towards this integration process which would facilitate in restructuring the domestic policies
• Identifying the loop holes towards facilitation in the integration process SME’s (e.g. international partnership, public-private partnership) as sources for SMEs to develop their capability to compete in regional market; and
• Identifying possible preparations required to be properly equipped to deal with the economic environment after AEC integration