Setting up infrastructure like export industrial estates, export processing zones, and bonded production centres can provide a real boost to export development. Improving financing conditions. Restricted access to finance for small firms which lack collateral and are considered high-risk borrowers puts a cap on production expansion. A recent ITC survey revealed that SMEs think of financing as their most critical problem. Strengthening marketing channels.
Many small enterprises are unable to market their goods effectively in existing markets.
Small firms continue to lack knowledge of marketing channels and fail to establish marketing networks, or have not entered into strong market relationships with existing customers. Several options are worth exploring to improve SME marketing channels. Some trading houses have been effective channels between small producers and the market in areas such as packaging, shipping, financing, insurance, quality management, publicity and delivery, as can be seen in the box above. Joint marketing consortia have also been successful in certain cases. Another option to stimulate SME export development is provided by subcontracting from large enterprises to small enterprises, as can be seen from the box below.