ADFIAP and the Australian APEC Study Centre (AASC), with funding support from AUSAid and the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), jointly organized from March 5-9, 2012 in Melbourne, Australia, a capacity-building training program for APEC policymakers and financial system regulators on “Implementing Best Practice Regulatory Principles and Proportionate Regulation to Support MSME Access to Finance.” Forty (40) participants and speakers altogether participated in the 5-day program. The conclusions of the participants will be incorporated into the report for presentation to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and ADBI Financial Inclusion Forum, to the APEC Finance Ministers as well as interested organisations.

This Melbourne program is the second of two components of a programme financed by the Australian Commonwealth Government’s Public Sector Linkages Program organized by AUSAid. The program was aimed at helping APEC economies gain an appreciation of a best practice regulatory and supervisory system, with a strong focus on proportionate regulation, to facilitate micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) obtaining access to finance. It also addressed a critical need for a proportionate regulatory response which has been identified as a major development challenge for MSMEs by G20, APEC and in many other forums. The program has met this challenge by intensively promoting a regulatory environment in the APEC region’s economies conducive to supporting increased financing of MSMEs through development banks, the commercial banking system and capital markets.

The first component was a symposium held in Manila, Philippines on June 27 – 28, 2011 which brought together financial system policy makers and regulatory officials from the region, specialists from international and regional organisations and standard setting bodies, senior representatives of development, savings and commercial banks, the securities sector and non-bank financial intermediaries. The symposium developed and recommended best practice proposals for regulatory and supervisory approaches which were designed to give policymakers, financial system regulators, banks, other financial institutions and capital market investors a higher level of comfort in financing MSMEs while also addressing the challenges facing MSMEs in accessing finance. The report of the symposium is available at https://www.apec.org.au/event2.asp?event=73

A faculty of highly experienced presenters and panelists from Australian and regional policy and regulatory agencies, international standard setting bodies, the academia and the finance industry, including representatives of ADFIAP, AASC and ABAC, were at hand to facilitate the learning and sharing process. Mr. Ken Waller and Mr. Octavio B. Peralta, Director and Secretary General represented AASC and ADFIAP, respectively. Ms. Ros Grady was the training program academic coordinator.