Ahead of the South African government and the International Trade Centre (ITC) hosting the first-ever Global Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) Ministerial Meeting in July, Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni said it comes at a time of economic recovery imperatives in South Africa, global trade disruption and increasing sustainability requirements.  

Ministers managing small business matters will be gathered on July 22 to 24 to activate partnerships that drive a stronger global trading system that supports small businesses.

Ndabeni hopes the event, themed “Navigating new business frontiers” will foster global consensus and realise more enabling regulations for SMEs to, firstly, participate and, secondly, to operate sustainably, especially in developing economies.

Ndabeni said in a countdown press conference ahead of the Ministerial Meeting that the event would focus on actionable policy directions and have powerful calls to action according to evidence-based solutions.

She emphasised that SMEs, including micro-sized businesses, enabled by government, could drive change in a non-disruptive way.

SMEs currently account for 90% of all companies and two-thirds of jobs worldwide.

Ndabeni underscored the ability women- and youth-owned SMEs to drive sustainable socioeconomic growth in developing countries.

She confirmed that SMEs would showcase, at the Ministerial Meeting, their capabilities, while a “startup 20 task force planning session” would also be hosted in the days preceding the event. This was an engagement group of the G20 that was coordinated by government, but led by the private sector.

Ndabeni noted that her department was not only focused on enabling startup companies to scale up, but also enabling medium-sized businesses to operate sustainably.

Commenting on the intended outcome of the Ministerial Meeting, ITC executive director Pamela Coke-Hamilton said she expected the gathering to encourage Ministers to set out a roadmap of global collaboration in which countries can work to address key challenges faced by SMEs, including access to finance, digital connectivity and the green transition.

“There is not a better time to host such a meeting. There are major changes in global trade and digital technologies,” she highlighted, adding that SME actions not only mattered for individual countries but the global economy’s sustainable trade and development, "hence our elevation of the SME agenda to the global stage”.

Coke-Hamilton said Ministers and officials from the UK, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, France, Brazil, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, India, Indonesia and Switzerland had confirmed attendance. Ndabeni expected between 50 and 70 countries to be present at the Global SME Ministerial Meeting, totalling about 750 delegates.

Meanwhile, a call for nominations for persons to serve as members of an advisory body to the Department of Small Business Development for three years to promote the interests of small enterprises, as contemplated in the National Small Enterprise Act 1996 as well as the amended Cooperatives Act of 2005, remains open until May 30.