participating as downstream manufacturers in regional production networks. in vietnam, manufacturing now makes up a third of the economy. - vietnam has developed into one of the world ’ s top electronics exporters, with samsung producing about 40 % of its phones there. to be sure, asian economies will continue to be subject to the political, economic and social 3 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches uncertainties that characterise emerging markets. but the region ’ s fundamentals are sound. growth inherently enlarges the size of the asset pool, and asset markets in asia provide a compelling case for global investors. the region is seeing a growing diversity of institutional investors – not just from asia but also from europe and the americas. there is also an expanding breadth of investible assets, driven by asian companies raising capital to grow and internationalise their business. alternative opportunities in asia recent trends in the asset management landscape favour investment opportunities in asia. a key trend is the shift in asset allocation from traditional public markets to private market alternatives like private equity ( pe ), real estate and infrastructure. this is largely driven by investors ’ search for yield and portfolio diversification benefits. preqin reports that allocations towards alternative assets hit a record us $ 7. 7 trillion assets under management in 2016. and perhaps as an indication of more to come, global institutional investors are still below their long - term target allocations to such alternative asset classes. in the steer towards alternative assets, there are two themes that stand out for investors looking towards asia. first, companies, including those in asia, are choosing to stay private for longer, and are increasingly comfortable with the pe value proposition. second, asia ’ s immense real estate and infrastructure needs are an opportunity for investors to monetise its demographic and structural transformations. the trend of companies choosing to stay private for longer is particularly marked for technology companies. if the experience in the us is any indication, the average age of us technology companies that went public in 2014 was 11 years, up from just 4 years in 1999. we are seeing the same among asian tech start - ups. - alibaba stayed private for 15 years before its ipo in 2014. - closer to home, singapore - based sea ltd, southeast asia ’ s most valuable start - up, raised its first funding round in 2009 and only recently filed for an ipo after 8 years. - razer inc., which was founded in 2005 by a singaporean and is now based in california, is still staying the

growth of 16 percent. individual proprietorship firms represented 93. 1 percent of the total of annual average growth, limited liability enterprises 4. 7 percent and holding enterprises 0. 6 percent. economic activity of these enterprises was focused in three areas : commercial activity 34. 3 percent, construction and building 32. 3 percent and manufacturing industries 14. 6 percent. small enterprises with less than 5 employees accounted for the largest share of 55. 5 percent of the total number of enterprises at the end of 1430h, while the rest, enterprises with more than 60 employees represented 3. 8 percent. these data show that most of the enterprises in the kingdom are small, in terms of the number of workers. smes ’ contribution to the kingdom ’ s gdp is very low, accounting for 33 percent, while smes constituted 64. 3 percent of japan ’ s gdp, 43. 3 percent of spain ’ s gdp, 56 percent of france ’ s gdp, 44 percent of austria ’ s gdp, 43 percent of canada ’ s gdp and 33 percent of australia ’ s gdp. smes ’ contribution to the u. s. a ’ s gdp is more than 50 percent. the insignificant contribution of smes to the kingdom ’ s gdp may be due to the oil and governmental sector which represent the major impetus of economic activity. dear brothers and sisters, smes are facing clear challenges in gaining the necessary funding for meeting their expansion needs due to various reasons including poor management, and lack of adequate guarantees and, subsequently, the difficulty of obtaining the necessary funding. in order to overcome this problem in the kingdom, the ministry of finance, in collaboration with saudi banks, established a guarantee program ( kafalah ) for financing smes. the program, with a capital of rls 200 million, is managed by saudi industrial development fund to cover a proportion of the risk of the financing entity in case of the failure of the guaranteed activity in repaying the finance or part thereof. the program also aims at encouraging banks to finance smes that have the constituents for success, but at the same time, they cannot present the necessary guarantees or accounting records to prove their eligibility for funding. the program has recorded good performance since its inception in 2006 until 1 - oct - 2010, as the number of guarantees approved by the ministry of finance during that period reached 1, 668 with a total value of rls 644 million, while loans granted by banks under the umbrella of the program amounted to rls 1. 6 billion