SMEs Urged to Register

KHMER TIMES
SOK CHAN

A solar-powered tuk-tuk used as a coffee cart in Phnom Penh. The Cambodian government wants all small business enterprises in the country to be registered legally. Reuters

The country’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been urged to register with the Ministry of Industry by early next year, in order that government policy intended to aid competitiveness can be more effective.

Of the 530,000 SMEs in Cambodia, many have been exempt from registration so far due to their small size, explained Laim Kimleng, director-general of the general department of SMEs and handicraft at the ministry. He called these businesses “micro-enterprises.”

“For the previous years, micro-enterprises across the country which only had investment capital up to $3,000 were not required to register with the ministry, so there was no data about those micro-enterprises,” he said.

“But since the ministry wants to have a clear data in order to set policy to help those micro-enterprises to boost their competitiveness, we require them to register with us,” Mr. Kimleng said.

“If we don’t know how many enterprises there are, how can we make a policy to support them?” he added.

Of the roughly 150,000 SMEs involved in manufacturing and handicrafts that he oversees, he said only about 40,000 had been so far registered with the ministry.

The registration is required to better inform the ministry ahead of a planned two-year survey of SMEs, Mr. Kimleng said. This can be done at the commune level, and does not require any complicated forms, he said.

“We have delegated this task to commune councils to register the micro-enterprises in their communes because we think that this reform will provide us with clear data, allowing us to cluster similar kinds of small enterprises,” he said.  

“We are minimizing the unimportant administration letters or regulations, but we will enforce technical regulatory tasks, in order to compete with other Asean countries.”

However, in an apparent blow to the ministry’s efforts, Te Taing Por, president of the Federation of Associations for Small and Medium Enterprises in Cambodia, said that SMEs were waiting for the policy to be completed before registering.

“We will push small enterprises to register when there is a policy for SMEs. But right now, why do we have to force them when there is no policy? ” he asked.

Keo Mom, president of Cambodia Women Entrepreneurs Association, told Khmer Times that registration was important for small companies, and urged businesses owners to comply with the ministry’s request.

“If SMEs are illegal, they cannot expand their businesses which will hurt their growth,” she said.