Title Financing Small and Medium Enterprises in Myanmar Author(s ...

Ⅸ. CONCLUSION
With an increased economic integration, both competition and cooperation among
nations are much more intense than ever, both inside and outside the ASEAN region. In
order to take advantage of speedy economic integration to achieve economic progress
and to sharpen the nation’s competitiveness, countries rely more on private sector. Since
SMEs represent the lion’s share in the private sector in a country, governments focus on
promoting their SMEs in all aspects. Their efforts are more apparent in recent years.
ASEAN countries also increasingly cooperate as well as compete against one
another in many areas, such as export, FDI, technology, as well as product and market
development. As the main engine of economic growth, SMEs can determine a country’s
competitive position. Weaker SMEs means weaker private sector and consequently,
means a weaker competitive position of a nations in the international arena, since no
forces can deter the free flow of goods and services in the era of economic integration
and globalization. Thus, countries in the ASEAN try to enhance their SMEs’
competitiveness and export potentials. They adopt various forms of SME developments
programs as a part of a country’s development strategy. Financing SMEs is one of the
most important aspects of SMEs development programs in every ASEAN country.
SMEs in Myanmar have long been in existence, and they had survived for a long
time even in the era of closed economy during the socialist regime. After 1988, they had
the chance to play a bigger role in Myanmar’s economy. The number of SMEs in
Myanmar has rapidly increased soon after the economy was opened to private sector.
However, they are facing a number of constraints that deter their further growth.
Inadequate financing, power shortage, availability of skilled labor, and increasing prices
of inputs are only a few of problems SMEs have to hurdle. At the same time, cheaper
imported products from neighboring countries squeeze their market shares. This
pressure tends to increase in the future due to liberalization of trade and greater
economic integration in the region.
Free entry of products within the country has to be allowed in the near future.
This situation could hamper their survival in future because most of the Myanmar
SMEs are traditional: they focus on the local market, they are inefficient producers,
they already struggle with many difficulties, they have outdated machineries and
technologies, and they lack modern management thinking and skills. So their products
cannot effectively compete with the products from other countries in the region. This