About This Report

Southeast Asia’s role in supply chains is evolving from a low-cost export hub to a strategic supply chain powerhouse.

Background & Purpose

The Centre for Impact Investing and Practices (CIIP), a non-profit entity established by Temasek Trust, embarked on this report to study the role of Southeast Asia MSMEs in global supply chains.

The 2025 report “Transforming for Sustainability: Driving Impact and Value through Supply Chain Action” builds on a foundational report prepared by CIIP and PwC Singapore, “It takes a community”: Enabling MSME resilience in FMCG supply chains” published in April 2024. Throughout the course of this study, CIIP engaged and sought the views of Khazanah Nasional Berhad as we have a shared interest in understanding the challenges faced by MSMEs in a world where sustainability considerations have become increasingly important. Yet, they are not getting any easier to navigate, especially for resource-stretched MSMEs.

Covering MSMEs across four markets, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam, and four sectors, namely consumer goods, food and beverage, electrical and electronics, and tourism, the study pursued several objectives. These included outlining the challenges and potential benefits of transforming supply chains toward ESG and impact outcomes, highlighting the role of industry stakeholders in supporting MSMEs on their sustainability journeys, and sharing industry practices related to impact accountability across supply chains.

This study offers clear indications of the promising investment opportunities and most successful business models and practices to accelerate the adoption of sustainable practices by MSMEs. Southeast Asia continues to be well-positioned to make strides in supply chain sustainability.

This study was supported by CIIP’s Regional Research Partner, Research For Impact, alongside Local Survey Partners in each market: Katadata Insight Center in Indonesia, EY Malaysia in Malaysia, Blackbox Research in Singapore, and Indochina Research in Vietnam. The survey findings underpinning this report were previously released in Bridging the ESG Gap: Insights from Southeast Asian MSMEs – Addendum Deck 2025 , prepared by Research For Impact and published in September 2025.

More about CIIP here.

Find the full report here, and addendum deck here.

Timeline

The insights on this data dashboard were collected through surveys across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam from April to July 2024.

Research Methodology

This data dashboard features responses from a quantitative survey of MSMEs. Each survey was administered to a senior manager from an MSME, covering MSME characteristics, current ESG-related policies and standards, ESG-related practices, perceptions of barriers and facilitators, as well as future plans, through a 30-45 minute online/telephone/in-person engagement.

This was supplemented by qualitative, participatory sessions with MSME senior managers and sector-level community representatives to review preliminary survey findings and explore in depth MSME experiences and stakeholder perspectives.

Surveys and roundtables in each country were designed with a common protocol but adapted and conducted with the support of local partners.

In overall and country-level reporting, sectors within each country were directly sampled or reweighted proportionally based on local partner estimates of the country’s sectoral composition. For regional and sector-specific reporting, countries were weighted in equal proportion to ensure that the findings are not skewed by large economies. Total sample sizes are reported for each analysis. Where questions were relevant only to specific subgroups (e.g., MSMEs that had implemented ESG practices), the reported sample size corresponds to the sample size of that subgroup.

Working definitions of MSME

	Micro Enterprise	Small Enterprise	Medium Enterprise
Indonesia	Capital of less than or equal to IDR 1 billion OR annual sales less than or equal to IDR 2 billion	Capital of less than or equal to IDR 5 billion OR annual sales less than or equal to IDR 15 billion	Capital of less than or equal to IDR 10 billion OR annual sales less than or equal to IDR 50 billion
Malaysia	Sales turnover of less than RM 300,000 OR less than 5 employees	Manufacturing: Sales turnover of less than RM 15 million OR less than 75 employees Services: Sales turnover of less than RM 3 million OR less than 30 employees	Manufacturing: Sales turnover of less than or equal to RM 50 million OR less than or equal to 200 employees Services: Sales turnover of less than or equal to RM 20 million OR less than or equal to 75 employees
Singapore	Operating revenue not exceeding SGD 1 million	Operating revenue not exceeding SGD 10 million	Operating revenue not exceeding SGD 100 million OR no more than 200 employees

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	Micro Enterprise	Small Enterprise	Medium Enterprise
Total Revenue	Agriculture, forestry, and fishing industry and construction: Less than or equal to VND 3 billion Trade and Services: Less than or equal to VND 10 billion	Agriculture, forestry, and fishing industry and construction: Less than or equal to VND 50 billion Trade and Services: Less than or equal to VND 100 billion	Agriculture, forestry, and fishing industry and construction: Less than or equal to VND 200 billion Trade and Services: Less than or equal to VND 300 billion
Total Capital	Less than or equal to VND 3 billion	Manufacturing: Less than or equal to VND 20 billion Services: Less than or equal to VND 50 billion	Less than or equal to VND 100 billion
Employees with SI Registration	No more than 10	Agriculture, forestry, and fishing industry and construction: No more than 100 employees Trade and Services: No more than 50 employees	Agriculture, forestry, and fishing industry and construction: No more than 200 employees Trade and Services: No more than 100 employees

Scroll to view more For more information, please see:

Indonesia

See how Indonesia’s Omnibus Law strengthens small businesses with new protections and growth opportunities.

Learn More

Indonesia

See how Regulation No. 7/2021 boosts and protects MSMEs and cooperatives.

Learn More

Malaysia

Understand what defines an MSME and access resources through MSME Corporation Malaysia.

Learn More

Singapore

Discover how Singapore’s services sector powers growth and innovation across key industries.

Learn More

Vietnam

See how Vietnam’s MSME Support Law 2017 strengthens MSMEs with key incentives and support measures.

Learn More

Sample Size and inclusion

Inclusion	Engaged in business-to-business (B2B) activities Meet respective country definitions of MSMEs At least some involvement in international or export-related activities
Exclusion	Providing only ancillary services to the sector (e.g., marketing, logistics, distribution) Exclusively serving other MSMEs in the local market
Exception	Business-to-consumer (B2C) MSMEs in the tourism sector only were included as a priority area

	Survey	Roundtable
Indonesia (ID)	Face-to-face recruitment across 24 provinces with a high concentration of MSMEs, supported by online and telephone surveys for remote regions	Five roundtable discussions conducted in person across five cities (Bali, Jakarta, Medan, Semarang, and Surabaya), each with 7-9 participants
Malaysia (MY)	Online and telephone surveys, supplemented with in-person interviews at relevant trade fairs and events	A total of 13 discussions conducted online, with each session focused on a specific sector represented by a maximum of two participants
Singapore (SG)	Online survey of Blackbox Research’s established panel of businesses	One roundtable discussion conducted in person with nine participants in Singapore
Vietnam (VN)	Mix of online, in-person, and telephone surveys in rural and urban areas, recruiting participants through business associations, national databases, and referral networks	Three roundtable discussions conducted in person in Ho Chi Minh City, each with six participants

The country-level survey sample size was determined based on a 95% confidence level and a maximum 5% margin of error given the estimated population size of the sectors of interest.

Within-country guideline quotas for individual sector and MSME sizes were set using locally estimated sectoral and MSME-size market shares, with a minimum target of 30 MSMEs per group.

Roundtable participants were purposively sampled to ensure representation of each sector, with additional inclusion of respondents from cross-sectoral platforms and associations.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Khazanah Nasional Berhad for their significant contributions to this study. Further, we extend our appreciation to PwC Singapore, RSM (in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam), and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) for their valuable contributions in validating the regulatory mapping affecting ESG practices across Asia and the EU. Their insights and expertise have strengthened the rigour of this study, ensuring a more comprehensive and accurate assessment of the evolving landscape.

We also thank Research For Impact (RFI) and the local research teams – Blackbox Research, Ernst & Young Malaysia, Indochina Research Limited and Katadata Insight Center – for their strong support in conducting MSME surveys and roundtable discussions across Southeast Asia. The substantial MSME insights included in this report were made possible because of their efforts in data collection and analyses.

Finally, we are grateful to all who have provided support at various stages of this study. We are also thankful for the collective support of the Temasek Trust Ecosystem especially ABC Impact, and colleagues at Temasek for their steadfast support.

Key Findings for the

Consumer Goods Sector