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Cambodia: New online portal will benefit SMEs

The Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation is setting up what it calls the National SMEs Information Web Portal, called “KhmerSME”, to allow local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to access various information and lets foreign direct investors (FDIs) to seek information from existing SMEs in Cambodia.

With this portal, SMEs are able to access information they need regarding standards, regulations, compliances, incentives, loan schemes and other valuable knowledge. In the future, the KhmerSME portal will connect with the Asean ACCESS, the new web portal to support the internationalisation of SMEs in Asean, serving as a first-stop service centre towards the Asean market.

The Ministry of Industry’s SMEs Department Director Chhea Layhy said as planned the KhmerSME will be launched by the end of the year.

“This portal will help the relevant ministries in Cambodia to insert and key in important information for SMEs to the portal,” Layhy added.

This is of benefit to local SMEs because access to information is a challenge to SMEs. SMEs find it difficult to seek relevant information, said Layhy. He added in the future the KhmerSME portal will be sychronised with the government’s new National Information Technology (IT) Business Registration Platform initiated by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

“With the KhmerSME portal, we will provide information to SMEs related to standards and marketing and design the template for each category such as access to finance, incentives, market segmentation, compliance and other data,” according to Layhy.

Layhy added that Asean ACCESS is for all Asean member states to support small and medium enterprises.

According to the Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation (previously known as the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft) in 2019, of the 510,000 firms that were registered in Cambodia, more than 90 percent of them were SMEs. These businesses employed more than 1.2 million people and contributed to more than 32 percent of the gross domestic product in the country.

Source: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50732787/new-online-portal-will-benefit-smes/