SMEs geared up for Apec journey

A NUMBER of small to medium-sized enterprises are ready to stay involved with the rest of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meetings this year.
This was the general sentiment expressed by SME operators in the National Development Bank- Business Incubation Centre in Port Moresby.
There was a shared concern that despite the Apec hype, local SMEs were not involved as much as they thought they would be in the lead-up to the summit in November.
The centre opened last year. It focuses on providing an environment for SMEs to grow and acquire operational skills.
National Development Bank managing director Moses Liu said the bank’s initiative was to build the capacity of SMEs.
“The business incubation centre is a new concept in Papua New Guinea,” he said.
“Elsewhere in the world, you have business incubation centres for small businesses in the micro-sector that want to engage in business.
“Incubation is training new people who have not had the opportunity to be engaged in business to be engaged in some form of business, to build up their skills in business to be able to successfully conduct their own business going forward”.