Singapore – The Global Innovation Forum (GIF) today released a new report, “New Faces of Trade: ASEAN Women in E-Commerce,” profiling women-owned businesses across countries in the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN) who have found success in the global marketplace.
The report, which was published with support from the UPS Foundation, profiles businesses from each of the 10 ASEAN member states – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam – and explores the challenges and opportunities they have encountered by engaging in the world economy.
Its launch coincides with a key meeting of ASEAN Economic Ministers in Singapore this week to advance economic policy deliverables to promote innovation and e-commerce flows and improve trade facilitation
Within ASEAN, small and medium sized businesses are the engines of local economies. They make up more than 50% of countries’ GDP and contribute up to 30% of exports. This report explores how local businesses use e-commerce to further propel them into the global economy by leveraging electronic payments, logistics and shipping, cloud and productivity software, social media and search to gain global reach and to meet the needs of their customers around the world.
“Today, at the click of a button, small businesses anywhere can reach new customers, without the capital investment previously needed to establish and sell to foreign markets” said Nando Cesarone, President of UPS International. “The opportunity is no greater than in the ASEAN region where e-Commerce sales are expected to reach $22 billion by 2020 and $88 billion by 2025.”
“Small business around the world can participate effectively in global markets when they have access to digital tools that facilitate payments, shipping, access to customers and communications,” said Jake Colvin, Executive Director of the Global Innovation Forum. “Governments and bodies like ASEAN play a key role in developing best practices and public policies that drive the success of businesses across the region.”
The report contains a series of policy recommendations for governments to consider implementing to help small businesses succeed globally.
The report is available for download at http://globalinnovationforum.com/reports/asean2018/
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About the Global Innovation Forum
The Global Innovation Forum is a nonprofit startup that connects entrepreneur, small business, development, and university communities with policymakers and select corporations to explore the opportunities and challenges of engaging in the global marketplace. GIF serves as a hub for startup, university and development communities around the world to communicate with officials and corporations, discover public and private resources to help them succeed, and improve the public policy landscape to enable global innovation. GIF is a project of the 501(c)(3) National Foreign Trade Council Foundation.