‘Electricity is needed for SMEs development’

‘Electricity is needed to develop the SME sector’, mentioned U Win Htay, Ayeyarwady regional minister of transportation, electricity, industry and communicationin the workshop of Ayeyarwady Region SMEs development road map, organized by Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF), in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry in Pathein, capital of Ayeyarwady Region, on 29 to 30 November 2017.

“It is not easy to develop industries without electricity’ U Win Htay said.  

And he added, “SMEs development is one among the many ways we are trying to develop our economy since the new government came into power. We want SMEs here to be developed like in other countries. For example countries like Japan that has 97% of SME and the rest large-scale enterprises.”

FNF Myanmar has organized two SMEs development road map workshops for Magwe Region and Ayeyarwady Region inNovember 2017 ad one in Chin State (https://goo.gl/eLaKPE) in July 2016. FNF is in the process of supporting to draw out SME development road maps for each region in Myanmar.

Over 200 participants attended the workshop in Magwe and about 180 participants attended the workshop in Pathein. They were from different areas such as government officials from many departments, CSOs, SMEs, local business people and political parties’ members.They –engaged in  group discussions on problems of SMEs development and they tried together to find out solutions for those problems as well as for SMEs development plan for short and long term in their region.

Daw Aye Aye Win, Director General of the Ministry of Industry attended and gave a welcome speech in the workshop in Magwe.

‘FNF is the first international partner organization of the Ministry of Industry. I would like to give thanks to FNF for supporting us and working together with us on SMEs development’ said Daw Aye Aye Win in her welcome speech.

‘It was a very good opportunity to attend this kind of workshop because I could meet many SEMs and business people from different areas around our region (Ayeyarwady) and I could get a lot of information about other work areas,” said Ma Thet Cho Win, a businesswoman who attended the workshop in Pathein.

She added, ‘I want working classes’ daily income to be increased because if they have good incomes, it will be effectives to business people. Now the income rate is very low and not enough regular jobs exist in this kind of countryside in Myanmar, there are less job opportunities here.”

Now Magwe and Ayeyarwady Regions have road maps for SME development. FNF Myanmar organized the first SMEs development road map workshop in Hakha capital of Chin State in 2016.

These workshops were all led by economic expert Dr. Adam McCarty, founder of Mekong Economic Group. During the workshops the participants discussed openly and developed a road map for short term plan and long term plan for their respective regions.

“This road map is not just for a five-year-government, we must pass it through the hands of successive governments,” said regional minister U Win Htay at his closing remarks.