Good Regulatory Practices to Support Small and Medium Enterprises in Southeast Asia
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can find it challenging to cope and comply with regulations and adapt regulatory changes. Good regulatory practice (GRP) helps create a stable and enabling regulatory environment for investment, trade, and entrepreneurhsip, and thus supports healthy economies and regional competitiveness. This report is the first comprehensive stock-taking of GRP implementation in Southeast Asia to support local SMEs and their integration into global value chains. For each of the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the report provides examples of GRP tools and approaches in areas such as administrative burden reduction, e-government, regulatory impact assessment, ex post evaluation, and stakeholder consultation. The report also includes an overview of collective efforts pursued at the ASEAN level to promote the GRP agenda across the region.
Malaysia
Malaysia has been using good regulatory practice (GRP) tools to enhance productivity and competitiveness. Since 2007, the government has undertaken a number of initiatives through the Modernising Business Regulation (MBR) programme to reduce regulatory burden and facilitate business processes in the country. The government continues to innovate by proactively identifying regulations that affect businesses, including through regular regulatory mapping exercises. E-government activities have also been used to lessen paperwork and ease day-to-day operations of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). More initiatives are being introduced to improve regulatory delivery with a focus on compliance, enforcement and inspection activities. For example, the government has introduced a number of programmes and informational sessions to improve the capacity of businesses - notably SMEs - to comply with new regulations. These initiatives have been introduced with support from academia as well as from industry.