Strategies of the Development of Entrepreneurship and SME

create more than 20 new jobs (per activity). Thus, Greece should develop its entrepreneurialactivity type and quality.Greece’s entrepreneurship problems also include weaknesses with regard to the longtermdevelopment of Greek businesses and the transition from a small or medium-size “familybusiness" to a “professionally managed” business.Small size enterprises face with relatively low production potential and a difficulty tooperate within global market due to lack of specialization and limited use of economies of scalein product manufacture and trading; limited capacity for high-volume investments in newtechnology equipment; difficulty of following developments in domestic and foreign markets;lack in information and in many skilled labor categories; difficult access to the banking system.The measurements related with ICTs should be accelerated to improve contributions ofnew technologies in the productivity of the Greek economy and in the quality of daily life of thecitizens.Labor productivity, especially in SMEs, should be increased via dealing withentrepreneurial problems (red tape, regulatory interventions), lack of competition, the smallsize of enterprises, lags in adoption of new technologies, and weaknesses of the educationsystem.Funding mechanisms for SMEs such as VC, PE funds, seed capital funds, and businessangels should be developed, especially for high-risk companies.6.2. TURKEY, AS THE EU CANDIDATE COUNTRYTurkish economy was restructured towards open market economy in 1980s. In otherwords, it was redirected towards export-based growth. For instance, Turkey’s total exportincreased approximately 5 folds between 1979 and 1987, i.e. from USD 2.3 billion to USD11.7.In accord with this increase, the structure of exported materials started to change fromagricultural products to industrial products. This process was disrupted by two crises in 1990s,in the years 1994 and 1999. This trend continued by other two crises in 2000 and 2001, inwhich Turkish economy felt a sharp turnaround in GDP down to 7.5 decreases.Due to macroeconomic conditions, inevitably, Turkish SMEs also oscillated. Last twocrises reflections can be best summarized by registry/closure ratio, according to TurkishStatistical Institute (TURKSTAT) data; 225,224 companies were officially registered while59.058 were closed down in 1999, put differently, the percentage of closure was 26. However,the number of registrations was 120,295 and that of closures was 101,999 in 2001; in otherwords, the percentage of closure went up to 84. In 2002, although the number of newregistries rose to 122,091, that of closures increased to 116,100, so the percentage of closurerose to 95. In short, negative macroeconomic conditions resulted from several issues, such asrepetitive crises, high long-term inflation and high interest rates etc., let Turkish SMEs morevulnerable to external influences. After recovery process, Turkish economy started to increaseits development acceleration. In the last three years, the average growth rate of Turkisheconomy was about 7%, export doubled from 35 to 72 billion USD and manufacturedproduction covers approximately 80% of Turkish export. In other words, the improvement ofTurkey’s investment environment, the decrease in the inflation rate, the attractiveness forforeign capital, create suitable conditions for SMEs, which form the backbone of Turkisheconomy and its success.Turkish SMEs account for 99.8% of all companies, including those in the service sectorand they employ 76.7 % of the total workforce. The share of SME investments within totalinvestments reaches 38%, and, 26.5% of the total value added is also created by these127