SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES - CHARACTERISTICS, ROLE AND SIGNIFICANCE, FINANCING SOURCES -

The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a major role in the economy, due to the flexibility of their structure, conferring them a high capability of adapting themselves to the fluctuations of the economic environment; they could easily be integrated into a regional industrial network, contributing, on the one side, to the economic development of the respective region and, on the other side, to the decrease in unemployment level and to the increase in living standards, since they ensure jobs to the local people; their low size contributes to the limitation of excessive bureaucracy and avoid dehumanisation; at individual level, these are making up a whole with a much easier management and control.