By Patrick Terroir

The Importance of SMEs for the EconomiesEven if there are no standard definition of what SMEs are, it is generally considered that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are firms employing between 10 and 250 (or 500) people and that firms with up to 10 employees are referred to as micro firms (it is often added a reference to a maximum turnover, like less than EUR 50 million € in Europe). The two categories constitute Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the statistics.1