SMEs are referred as the backbones of APEC economy. SMEs in many economies are still facing unprecedented challenges and are affected by the covid-19 epidemic. In order to effectively respond to the epidemic, it’s essential for us to improve the recovery capacity of SMEs, help them recover from these unpredictable emergencies, and maintain the sustainable economic growth of APEC. This topic also echoes the priorities of APEC SMEMM Declaration and APEC SMEWG.

Basing on the previous achievements, the APEC SME Business Forum has been held in China for the past four consecutive years. For this year, with the theme of "Innovation and Digitalisation”, aims to improve the policy environment for SMEs' innovation and enhance their scientific and technological innovation capabilities, promote the collaboration among SMEs in the APEC region. The project is planned to be implemented in Shenzhen, China, in mid- December 2021. The project will include a major forum- 2021 APEC SME Business Forum and parallel forums focus on Digital Economy, Industrial Internet, Biomedical Engineering, etc. There will be officials, scholars, economists to give keynote speeches and they will be the honored guests for dialogues. The forum also provides the dialogue platform for facilitating the entrepreneurs’ views and voices to be better presented and considered. The participants are welcome to attend both virtually and physically.