Good morning. It is a great pleasure for me to be here today and to extend a warm welcome to everyone in this Regional Policy Dialogue. I wish to thank the ASEAN SME Working Group as well as the US-ASEAN Business Council for their support in organizing this meeting.

I would also like to thank the speakers and resource persons from the public and private sectors and from international organizations for their participation today. They are giving their valuable time to share their rich experiences, good practices, and successes in the area of women’s economic empowerment to help us recommend a strong agenda for ASEAN in the future.

I also acknowledge the strong presence of many women entrepreneurs from across ASEAN in this meeting. I am pleased that this Regional Policy Dialogue provides a forum for interaction and networking between the ASEAN SME Working Group and the ASEAN Women Entrepreneurs Network (or AWEN). The SME Working Group is part of the ASEAN Economic Community while AWEN is part of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community and the two communities seldom meet. This is the first time that these two groups have worked together in a common forum, and I hope there will be many more such opportunities in the future.

In recent decades, governments and concerned individuals have made notable achievements in fostering greater women’s economic inclusion around the world. In turn, this has contributed massively to economic growth, social progress, poverty reduction, healthier lives and stronger communities globally. However, there remain historical, economic, political, socio-cultural, legal and structural factors that tend to exclude or limit women’s participation in many economic activities.

Gender economic disparities have persisted in several important aspects and dimensions, although to varying extents and degrees of seriousness, in ASEAN and across the developing and developed world. Many of these disparities are presented in the background paper prepared for this Regional Policy Dialogue.

One clear area where we need a more active policy response is to address the challenges that women entrepreneurs face in this region. But what types of supportive policy environment will make the most sense for ASEAN to pursue in both the short and the medium term? That is what you will discuss today. We know the goal is to achieve gender equitable business opportunities; figuring out how to get there is the challenge and opportunity we ask you to discuss today.

Promoting gender equality and advancing women’s economic participation is a core development goal of the United States. We are committed to equipping women and girls with skills and capabilities to expand their opportunities and choices as entrepreneurs and employees. We are also advancing investments in enterprises that are dedicated to developing products and services that significantly benefit the lives of women and girls. Three focus areas -- women entrepreneurs, enterprises that promote jobs for women, and enterprises producing goods and services of significant benefit to women and girls, are what are referred to as a “gender lens” in investing—ideally employed by the full range of investors, including donors, philanthropists and private financial investors. We are however, also fully aware of the difficult challenges in leveling the playing field, including in fostering women’s entrepreneurship and enterprise which is the exclusive focus of our attention in this Regional Policy Dialogue. We at USAID are very pleased to be able to support this effort.

Before closing I would like to express my appreciation to the American business community for their support for this effort through the US-ASEAN Business Alliance for Competitive SMEs.   

I am confident that we will have a very fruitful meeting, one that provides useful and practical inputs for the ASEAN SME Strategic Action Plan 2016-2025, and its Implementation Roadmap for 2016-2020, to ensure women’s full participation in the ASEAN economy.

Have a great, productive dialogue!  Thank you.