The Workshop on "Developing SME Policy Index for ASEAN" was held on October 17, 2011, at ERIA, Jakarta Office.

It was attended by leading SMEs' experts, ERIA researchers, an OECD's expert, official from Indonesia's State Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, and from the ASEAN Secretariat. The objective of this workshop is to discuss the framework on policy dimensions, sub-dimensions, indicators, and level of policy reforms to be included in the ASEAN SME Policy Index. 

During the workshop, all participants exchanged views on the experiences of the OECD's SME Policy Index and its relevance to the ASEAN context. They also presented an overview of the framework for respective policy dimension, sub-dimensions, indicators, and level of policy reforms. The presentations were followed by lively and rigorous discussions to ensure that the proposed components of the policy index are realistic and feasible.

As the result, the expert groups will submit the very preliminary draft of the framework paper detailing policy dimension, sub-dimensions, indicators, and level of policy reforms to ERIA in November, 2011. It is hoped that the rough draft of the integrated framework paper will be submitted to the coming meeting of the ASEAN Small and Medium Enterprise Agencies Working Group to be held in Brunei Darussalam for their consideration and deliberation.