Policies to increase opportunities for SMEs to play an important role in global value chains were presented at the APEC Committee on Trade and Investment Meeting by the APEC Policy Support Unit on Saturday in Qingdao, China. Global value chains play an important role in the international trading system. Today, around 80 percent of world trade is conducted through networks of global value chains. These value chains are comprised of a multitude of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) dispersed across a large geographical area.