Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) account for the overwhelming majority of businesses and employment across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), yet they attract a disproportionately small share of investment. Much of the gap is not a shortage of opportunity, but a set of practical legal, regulatory, and institutional obstacles that make investing in MSMEs harder than it needs to be. 

This workshop is part of an ADB regional activity that is developing practical policy, legal, regulatory, and institutional reform guides for MSME investment facilitation across eleven ASEAN developing member countries. The activity follows a simple logic: identify the sectors where MSMEs hold the greatest potential, pinpoint the specific constraints that hold back investment in those sectors, and design targeted, achievable reform programming that unlocks it. The analysis is tailored to each country’s own circumstances and market maturity. It is explicitly not a ranking or a comparison between countries.