Increasing annual investments in small and medium-sized enterprises by $1 trillion would yield disproportionate dividends in terms of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. These investments also have the potential to deliver healthy returns for investors. To boost investment in developing country small firms, this report finds that stronger investment facilitators (actors which connect firms to investors) are key. Other major findings: bundling investments for small firms into large packages helps scale up financing; disseminating information on small business credit performance improves risk assessments; and helping these firms to be investor-ready improves their commercial viability.
The SME Competitiveness Outlook 2019 explains how best to scale up private sector investment in developing country SMEs for sustainable development impact. According to the report, lack of scalable SME investment projects and knowledge about enterprise capacities, as well as challenges in matching SMEs and investors, are holding investors back from channelling more funding into otherwise profitable investment opportunities in developing countries. The key questions addressed in this report include:
One of the major contemporary challenges facing developing country firms, and especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is the ever increasing number of regulations and sustainability standards required of them if they are to integrate into global value chains.