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Survey: Small Medium Enterprises Set for Growth
Malaysian small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs), like its counterparts in other Asian countries, are geared for growth and optimistic about 2005, according to the first annual Asia Business Monitor survey.
The survey, commissioned by package delivery company United Parcel Service (UPS), found that 53% of Malaysian SMEs planned to hire more employees this year.
This put it higher than the regional average of 46% and placed Malaysia third after India at (67%) and China (62%).
UPS Malaysia managing director Mary Yeo said the figures demonstrated the upbeat feelings Malaysian SMEs were experiencing in their business prospects.
"The survey found that 63% of Malaysian SME leaders think they will be better off at the end of 2005," she told reporters at a briefing in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
'This figure hews closely to the regional average of 65% and puts Malaysia on par with its peers in surrounding Asian countries,†she added.
The survey involved more than 1,200 decision-makers from Asian SMEs in 12 countries - Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.
UPS Malaysia business development manager Rienzie Delilkan said 19% of Malaysian respondents indicated cash flow and funding as the most worrying issue, but the figure was below the region's average of 23%.
He said that with more Government initiatives focused on SMEs, the figure was expected to drop in the future.
Delilkan said that across the region, 88% of the SME leaders regarded information technology and telecommunications (IT&T) sector as the most important industry for the next two years in their countries, followed by financial (79%) and transport and logistics (78%).
On the growing predominance of China, 48% of the Malaysian respondents considered the Asian giant a boon to business while 26% considered it a threat, Delilkan said.
'Most SME leaders believed that China is best poised to capitalise on future growth as 73% of the respondents find Chinese SMEs to be more competitive than the SMEs in their countries,†he said.
Philippine and Indonesian SMEs were ranked the least competitive while Malaysian SMEs came in tenth and were considered competitive by 27% of the survey's respondents.
The biggest obstacles to SME competitiveness across Asia, considered both important and lacking, were innovation, access to market intelligence and other business information, and access to funding and capital.
'Labour cost, innovation and access to funding and working capital are the main factors in Malaysia that seem to be posing an obstacle to SME competitiveness,†Delilkan said.
Kuala Lumpur 27/04/2005
