Significance and contribution of small enterprises in Asia:
Universally it is recognized that small enterprises are established by and operated by
entrepreneurs – those individuals who identify opportunities in the environment,
establish targets and achieve those targets while accepting risk associated with their
activities. These entrepreneurs establish their small enterprises in every field of
endeavour – retail, service industry, manufacturing as well as agriculture sectors.
The extent of small enterprises in selected Asian countries are set out in Table 1
below which indicates an estimate of non-agricultural enterprises as well as the
percentage which these small enterprises represent all enterprises in the 1990’s