Government Programs Focused on Financial Support for SMEs (2014-2018)

• Main Authors: Nicoleta Asaloș, Ionel Bostan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ovidius University Press 2019-01-01
• Series: Ovidius University Annals: Economic Sciences Series
• Subjects: government programs; funding; smes; competitiveness
• Online Access: http://stec.univ-ovidius.ro/html/anale/RO/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Section%20V/1.pdf

The SMEs or the Small and medium-sized enterprises sector is underlying the Romanian economy, its share representing 99.64% of the total enterprises. As the main driver of economic growth, SMEs are facing several problems, which generate a direct impact on economic competitiveness. Economic competitiveness is based on determinants at the macro (i.e. institutions, public finances, infrastructure, etc.) and micro (i.e. business environment, SMEs’ dynamics, entrepreneurship, innovation activity, clustering, development of business networks) level. This paper seeks to address and analyze the 2014-2018 government programs which focused on funding SMEs, given the difficulties that the latter face in developing and increasing competitiveness due to a rather difficult and costly access to financing, but also due to the access to various markets.