Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have long been recognised as the backbone of the Malaysian economy. The latest statistics from the Economic Census 2011: Profile of SMEs, conducted by Department of Statistics, Malaysia (DOSM) indicates a total of 645,136 SMEs operating in Malaysia, representing 97.3% of the total business establishments in 2010. The majority of SMEs are operated in the services sector (90%), followed by manufacturing (6%), construction (3%), agriculture (1%) and the remaining 0.1% are found in the mining and quarrying sector.

As the important generator of growth and employment, SMEs contributed close to 36% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014. SMEs’ shares to total employment and exports of the country are 65% and 17.8% respectively.