ABSTRACT
Until the crisis, Thailand never passed any specific policy legislation concerning the Registered small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector. This is perhaps inspired by some kind of <italics>laissez-faire</italics>, like in Hong Kong, but remains quite surprising when compared with most other East Asian emerging economies like Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and even Singapore, more recently. The latter category refers to medium-sized and even larger enterprises acting as suppliers and subcontractors to domestic and foreign corporations, and can be traced especially in the automotive and electronic sectors. In late 1998, the government recognized the need for a common definition of SMEs in order to facilitate statistical collection work, policy formulation and implementation, and the work of specialized agencies working together with SMEs. The Department of Commercial Registration under the Ministry of Commerce is responsible for all types of business registration, and is therefore, in charge of producing statistical data on such matters as corporate status, financial statements, dissolutions or mergers.
