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The Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion (OSMEP) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) to support the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups via capital market mechanism. SMEs and startups will be well-equipped to access funding and effectively grow to become quality larger enterprises contributing to Thailand’s economic fundamentals.
OSMEP Director General Veerapong Malai said that OSMEP’s key mission is to integrate, drive and promote SMEs to be competitive globally by joining forces with alliances in all related sectors. SMEs need to enhance their potentials to increase attractiveness and competitive capabilities as well as align with OSMEP’s policy prioritizing 3 issues: 1) Exploring marketing channels to SMEs to boost their revenue in the post-Covid-19 era, 2) Cutting down expenses to increase efficiency and enhancing knowledge to entrepreneurs and 3) accommodating them to access to sources of funding a vital factor to help SME operators stay afloat and stage a strong comeback in the future, and reach funding in capital market. The fundraising mechanism in the capital market can fulfil the needs of SMEs to achieve growth. The signing of this MoU and the collaboration will certainly boost SMEs’ potentials and develop the capital market ecosystem that suits the readiness of each SMEs segment.
The SEC Deputy Secretary-General Sirivipa Supantanet stated that the SEC has placed importance on the development of SMEs and startups in line with the national strategy and the Thai capital market development plan. The SEC has supported these entrepreneurs to be accessible to funding sources in capital market by joining hands with OSMEP to launch a (PP-SME) project, which enable company limited to allocate securities through private placement (PP) and exchange information each other, to promote mobilizing fund via capital market.
The SEC has recently eased regulations to allow SMEs and startups to raise funds in the capital market through various financial tools, such as securities crowdfunding, convertible bond via PP, among others. Moreover, the SEC is currently in the process of issuing regulations to broaden opportunities for SMEs and startups that have been operating for some time to raise funds more widely and list their equities in the secondary market, which will be set up and is under discussion between the SEC and SET. The MoU takes a step toward pushing and developing SMEs and startups to access to capital market’s funding sources, and officially integrating the tri-party collaboration.
SET President Pakorn Peetathawatchai said that SET is committed to enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs and startups toward healthy and sustainable growth as key mechanism of economic growth in the future. Operating via a subsidiary called Live Fin Corp Co., Ltd., SET has developed the LiVE platform with cooperation from networking partners from public and private sectors to gear up SMEs for raising funds in the capital market. In addition, SET has partnered with four state-owned financial institutes namely Krungthai Bank (KTB), Government Savings Bank (GSB), Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand (SME D Bank), and Export-Import Bank of Thailand (EXIM Thailand) to collaboratively enhance quality of services and encourage the usage of LiVE platform among SMEs. The Education platform under LiVE is now available for use. SMEs and startups can access LiVE platform at www.live-platforms.com.
