Barriers to SME development remained unchanged during ten years

The limited access to financial resources and the low entrepreneurial abilities determined by the poorly developed business infrastructure remain the major barriers to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, said Iulia Iabanji, director general of the Organization for the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Companies, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. The inefficiency of the informational resources is another problem. The information about financing and training possibilities for SMEs hardly reaches the districts, but the central and local authorities are making effort to improve the situation. Iabanji said that over 2,000 SMEs had been registered last year. They now total 41,100, up 5.1% from a year before. The SMEs make up 98% of the economic entities working in Moldova. The SMEs' revenues constitute 37.1% of the total revenues in economy. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Valeriu Lazar said the crisis did not seriously affect the SME sector according to preliminary data. The information provided by the State Registration Camber confirms the people consider that the setting up of small businesses can help them overcome the crisis and increase incomes. Lazar said that the major objective at present is to facilitate these companies' access to cheaper financial resources for developing businesses or starting new ones. He said that this will be done by attracting money from foreign donors and by capitalizing the loan grantee fund and the resources of financial assistance projects intended for SMEs such as RISP. He also said that the SMEs will be soon able to obtain money from the US$24 million provided by the World Bank in additional financing to the Competitiveness Enhancement Project. US$22.5 million of this sum will be offered to 2-3 local banks. About US$1.5 million will be used to extend the co-financing grant mechanism designed for companies that will implement the quality management system ISO.