Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, macroeconomics, Macroeconomics and macroeconomic policy, Moldova, Post-communist transition and development issues, SME, Trade, economic integration and globalization

Small and Mid-size Business in Moldova: analysis and road map

CASE launched a second study within the project ‘Transfer of Know-How for Small and Mid-size Businesses in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine’, which aims to assist SMEs in those countries by providing support to stakeholders in their efforts to develop analytical and policy advocacy capabilities, as well as by opening new channels of communication between SMEs and NGOs in the Visegrad Four countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) and the rest of the European Union. The second paper is dedicated to SME's situation in Moldova.

 The key outcome of the paper is a road map – a very specific plan of actions including schedules, budgets, and other details within the scope of this project that will help the beneficiary country to cope with problems regarding the agenda of small and middle business development using the expertise and experience of institutions and stakeholders accumulated throughout the Slovak EU accession process.

 According to the latest data (January 2014) published by the Statistica Moldovei, in 2012 the number of small and medium sized enterprises was 49.4 thousand, which accounts for 97.5% of the total number of enterprises.The majority of SMEs operate in the Chisinau region and in urban areas. More than 300 thousand people worked for SMEs (57.7% of the total number of employees). Historically, SMEs have been the main generator of employment in the country (OECD, 2011), however, SME employment started to decline during the crisis, in parallel with an overall decrease in employment. (One-tenth of the population and over a quarter of the Labor force works abroad. (Cantarji, Minou, 2013) Problematically however, this decline in SME employment is due to the decline in the staff of medium-sized enterprises, while that of smaller sized ones has remained more or less constant.

Read about the publication:http://www.case-research.eu/en/node/58864

The first publication was dedicated to Ukraine: http://www.case-research.eu/en/node/58842