Despite Europe’s current struggle to recover from the economic crisis, SMEs have managed to stand their ground and to continue to strive towards recovery, the 2012 Small Medium Enterprises Perform-ance Review released by the European Union has shown.

The SME Performance Review report reveals that the EU member states’ overall efforts have translated into new employment opportunities and growth, and that growing economies with increased and stabilised demands help SMEs to maintain such growth.

Real value-added growth for SMEs has also contributed towards an increase in employment levels and in real productivity. On the other hand the report also reveals that a number of cyclical and structural factors have a significant impact of the performance of SMEs. Access to finance by SMEs has deteriorated over the past months in most member states, with a significant number of SMEs failing to obtain bank loans.

A number of member states are reacting positively to problems encountered by SMEs, and national policy measures in support of SMEs have risen constantly over the past years, with 38 per cent more measures being taken in 2011 compared to 2010. The report reveals that member states are focussed on promoting entrepreneurship, promoting skills, upgrading and fostering innovation in SMEs and improving their access to finance.

Despite this focus, however, SME supporting measures still remain unbalanced, with several still to be taken by a number of companies. These include facilitating a second chance for unsuccessful entrepreneurs and addressing the requirements of small businesses in the drafting of legislation.

Together with member states the Europ-ean Commission is currently working on a collection of initiatives that will help SMEs flourish and, later on this year, the Commission is expected to launch the Entrepreneurship Action Plan. The plan aims to address a number of concrete actions aimed at boosting entrepreneurship in the EU.

For more information visit http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/index_en.htm

This information is supplied by Impetus Europe Consulting Group Ltd.

info@impetuseurope.com
www.impetuseurope.com

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