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ABSTRACT
In the early 1990s the Central Statistical Office (GUS) in its publications on small and medium-sized enterprises used to classify companies according to the number of employees. That is how the division into small - with up to 5 members of staff, medium-sized - employing from 6 to 50 people and big - with more than 50 employees - enterprises was introduced. However, due to the need to adjust the GUS criteria to the EU standards a new division of companies was implemented for the reporting needs, namely: micro-companies with 0 - 9 employees, small businesses employing 10-49 people, medium-sized ones with the headcount of 50 - 249 and big enterprises having the workforce of more than 250 people. Currently the sector comprising micro, small and medium-sized enterprises is a dominant group of business entities in the European economy. There are almost 2.6 million entrepreneurs who conduct their business in EU member states.
Small and medium-sized companies account for 99.8% of the total number of non-financial enterprises. The prevailing group here - representing 92.4% of such businesses - are micro-businesses, 6.4% are small companies and 1% are medium-sized enterprises. When compared to the EU's average, the largest sector of SMEs can be found in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The benefits of having small and medium-sized companies had not been recognised in Poland until 1990s. Then the government started a number of initiatives designed to show some directions for development and provide support to this group of market participants, as well as launching a series of programs, such as "Small and medium-sized enterprises in the economy" in 1995, "The directions of the government's activities towards small and medium-sized enterprises for up to 2002" in 1999 and "Entrepreneurship first" in 2002. The aim of the paper is to review the factors which affect the SMEs sector in Poland and to evaluate the structure of this sector.
Keywords: Development, Poland, SME
1. THE EVOLUTION OF THE DEFINITION OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
The evolution in the way of defining small and medium-sized enterprises started in the 1970's. It was the time when the significance of small and medium-sized enterprises for a national economy gradually increased. This...