On 26 October 2022, the G20 Entrepreneurship Roundtable 2022 under the theme of “Inclusive and Sustainable Entrepreneurship as Job Creation Instruments” was cohosted by the Entrepreneurship Research Center on G20 Economies and the Ministry of Manpower of the Republic of Indonesia. The G20 Entrepreneurship Research Center has held the roundtable for six consecutive years and co-hosted the event with the G20 Presidency for the first time this year. The meeting had two offline venues in Beijing, China. and Jakarta, Indonesia.
Dr. Ida Fauziyah, Minister of Manpower of the Republic of Indonesia, and Yu Jiadong, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security of the PRC, delivered the remarks at the meeting.
Prof. Gao Jian, Director of Entrepreneurship Research Center on G20 Economies and Professor at Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, Prof. Anwar Sanusi, Chair of the G20 Employment Working Group and Secretary General of the Ministry of Manpower of Indonesia, and Mr. Dragan Radic, Head of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) unit of the International Labour Organization (ILO), delivered keynote speeches.
Dr. Ida Fauziyah conveyed in her speech that the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic slowdown have put massive pressure on the entrepreneurial world, making the productivity and management, and business skills of SMEs more limited compared to big companies. In order to tackle these challenges, the G20 Labour and Employment Ministers’ Meeting passed the Policy Recommendation on Promoting Entrepreneurship and Support MSMEs as Job Creation Instruments. Dr. Ida Fauziyah said that the G20 Entrepreneurship Roundtable has laid a good foundation for the G20 members to cooperate and share, and jointly address challenges. She also hoped that the discussion would generate ideas, solutions, and concrete steps to encourage inclusive and sustainable entrepreneurship as an instrument of job creation that is resistant to future shocks and uncertainties.
In his speech, Vice Minister Yu Jiadong conveyed that the G20 Entrepreneurship Roundtable organized by Entrepreneurship Research Center on G20 Economies has become an important platform for sharing insight and exchanging practice on entrepreneurship promotion, providing support for G20 members to improve their entrepreneurship policies, therefore, its influence has continued to increase. He pointed out that the G20 Labor and Employment Ministers' Meeting this year has taken sustainable entrepreneurship as an important topic. And the G20 Entrepreneurship Action Plan reached by G20 LEMM in 2016, in combination with the new situation and challenges of global entrepreneurship, will further promote entrepreneurship and support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are considered as the important engine to create more stable job. The G20 Entrepreneurship Roundtable 2022, in his words, was an important step to implement the consensus among the G20 Labour and Employment Ministers. Mr. Yu called on all members to make better use of the roundtable, through which they can exchange experiences, build consensus, and contribute insights to the people-oriented recovery through entrepreneurship.
Prof. Gao Jian explained the Progress Report on the G20 Entrepreneurship Action Plan (2017 - 2021), and pointed out that the implementation of the G20 Entrepreneurship Action Plan is very important for business development in the G20 members, and also for leveraging the role of business startups in boosting employment and stimulating high-quality growth. Over the past five years, the members have made progress in implementing the Action Plan, but challenges remain as well. Prof. Gao Jian put forward five suggestions: the first is to further improve the quality of entrepreneurial activities and leverage the role of business startups in boosting employment; second, improve the government’s business service system and make it more effective; third, organizations of all kinds should keep on pursuing innovation and improve the quality of services for entrepreneurs; fourth, build a global entrepreneurial cooperation and incubation network to enhance the ability of MSMEs and startups to expand the global market; fifth, promote inclusive and sustainable entrepreneurship, and create an equal environment for businesses startups .
Prof. Anwar Sanusi pointed out in his keynote speech that the G20 Entrepreneurship Roundtable was one of a series of activities of the G20 Employment Working Group in 2022, and the event was in line with the outcome in the G20 Labour and Employment Ministers’Meeting, which is to promote inclusive and sustainable entrepreneurship and create stable jobs. Prof. Anwar Sanusi also shared the policy recommendations produced in the G20 Labour and Employment Ministers’ Meeting on promoting entrepreneurship and supporting MSMEs. Specifically, these recommendations include supporting a conducive business environment and enterprise formalization, promoting entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial training, helping entrepreneurs and MSMEs address challenges and sustain their development, and protecting the rights and interests of entrepreneurs, MSMEs, and their employees.
Mr. Dragan Radic conveyed that entrepreneurs and SMEs played an important role in economic development and social progress, as they are drivers of economic and social development, and are key to promoting decent work. Mr. Radic shared the ILO’s policy recommendations on the challenges facing entrepreneurs and SMEs, including continuously optimizing the business environment, providing high-quality business development services, broadening fundraising channels, improving market systems, promoting formalization and enhancing enterprise productivity and resilience, etc.
The G20 Entrepreneurship Roundtable 2022 focused on five topics: Strengthening Policies to Support Inclusive and Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Enhancing Innovation and Entrepreneurship Capacity, Expanding International Cooperation Network on Entrepreneurship, Promoting Green and Digital Entrepreneurship, and Boosting Inclusive and Sustainable SMEs and Startups. Nearly 200 representatives, including those from the governments, universities, enterprises, and research institutes of the G20 members, international organizations such as the ILO, OECD, UNESCO, and UN Women, as well as social groups such as the Youth 20 attended the meeting, where they exchanged ideas on the latest entrepreneurial perceptions and practices.