GENTING HIGHLANDS, Oct 30 (Bernama) -- Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to shift their efforts from "trying to be big" to "trying to be best".

Second Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah, said the idea that a successful SME needed to grow and become a big conglomerate was not necessarily true.

"A SME is also successful if it can specialise in a particular high-value niche product.

"Buyers come to you from all over the world because you are the best," he said at The Golden Bull Awards 2011 on Friday.

To enhance the capabilities of the SMEs, he said, the government has established the Green Lane Policy to support the companies to move up the value chain and compete at higher level in the market.

"In the last two years, the government has put in place a number of policies and programmes to move the various sectors of our industry up the value chain to take our economy to the next level," Husni said.

He said the effort was in line with the government's vision to become a high-income economy by 2020.

"It is easier to move from a low- to middle-income country but much more difficult to move from middle- to high-income," he said.

Husni said according to the World Bank Report, there were only 35 countries that were still in the low-income category compared with 63 in 2000.

However, he said, for the last two decades, only 20 countries had managed to jump from middle- to high-income economy.

"These countries succeeded because they managed to change the way they operate their economies," he said.

-- BERNAMA