The Director of UNCTAD’s Division on Investment and Enterprise, Mr. James Zhan, has been in Istanbul this week to present the Division's recent Entrepreneurship Policy Framework (EPF) to a ministerial session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Mr. Zhan was invited to speak about small and medium-sized enterprise development and policy options to increase the competitiveness of SMEs, particularly in OIC member States.
"Entrepreneurship needs to be addressed in a systemic manner", Mr. Zhan said in his statement.
"UNCTAD's research and policy analysis show that entrepreneurship development sometimes follows a narrow approach, overlooking some of the other relevant policy areas that have an impact on entrepreneurship. Policymakers therefore need to adopt a comprehensive policy approach."
Based on the Division's wide-ranging experience in the area of enterprise development over the past 20 years, the EPF is intended to offer a comprehensive and coordinated approach to entrepreneurship and business start-ups. This new policy framework has been developed as a tool-kit for policymakers; it focuses on six core areas that can help to foster entrepreneurship and private sector development.
Mr. Zhan also referred in his statement to building links between domestic businesses and foreign firms, the so-called “SME-TNC linkages”, which the Division's Business Linkage Programme seeks to address. Developing country firms often face challenges in integrating into global value chains via the international firms present in their country, or in becoming a local supplier that meets transnational corporations’ specifications and standards. The Business Linkage Programme is designed to help policymakers to get the most out of international investment in their countries for the benefit of their own domestic enterprises, and to ultimately boost job creation and income growth.
Concluding his mission to Istanbul, Mr. Zhan met with Mr. Mustafa Baltaci, Executive Vice-Chairman of the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), to discuss its participation in the Sustainable Stock Exchange (SSE) initiative, w hich UNCTAD co-organizes. Mr. Baltaci confirmed that the ISE will support efforts to encourage other members of the World Federation of Exchanges to join the SSE initiative. Already the initiative has signed up six exchanges, including NASDAQ, and these together represent over 10,000 listed companies.
The SSE initiative aims to explore how exchanges can work together with investors, regulators, and companies to enhance corporate transparency, and ultimately performance, on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues, and to encourage responsible long-term approaches to investment.
