Strategies of the Development of Entrepreneurship and SME

(TEKMER) are designed to give support to SMEs in the technologically intense projects andimprovement of their R&D activities, the legislative procedure of setting up Match-makingCenters enabling SMEs to set-up national and international partnerships in trade, jointproduction or investment to take part and compete in international markets, were completedand the implementation process has been started .Therefore, the importance of SMEs in the economic and social life has started to beacknowledged much better, and accumulation of experience and information in terms of SMEpolicies began to proceed. However, it is a well known fact by all related parties that the SMEpolicies are not yet at the demanded or required level. For this reason, SME policies shouldtarget towards the setting up of the required physical and technological infrastructure toincrease the international competitive power of the SMEs, the reduction of input costs forcompetitiveness, the creation of suitable work environments via improving the financialopportunities and access to technology, and the increasing the productivity and added value ofSMEs.6.2.1. Legislation and steps of doing businessIn terms of the legislative regulations, it is possible to summarize the basic strategy ofTurkey under two headings. First of these is such topics as the cancellation of the redundantlegislation, the completion of the required legislation, the combination of the legislations withthe same subject matter, the elimination of the authority contradictions in the implementationof legislations among institutions, the use of ICTs in the implementation of legislations tofacilitate the operations, etc., which require urgent attention. The second heading is theadjustment of the legislation to the EU legislation particularly under such chapters as freemovement of properties/capital/people, corporation law, competition policy, food safety,environment, science and research, enterprises, and industry policy. All these regulations areconsidered with the aim of improving innovativeness, competitiveness, and institutionalstructure of SMEs in the international arena. Selected major laws, decrees, ministerial ordersetc. promoting SMEs are stated as follows.The Law on Amendments on Turkish Commercial Code No:4884, Tax Procedural Law, StampTax Law, Labor Act and Social Securities Law came into force on 17 June 2003. The said lawenabled association of a company in one day, by granting authority to Trade Registries andcompany association processes was reduced to 3 transactions from 19 transactions. With theLaw No.5569, it is aimed to restructure the debts of SMEs to banks and other financialinstitutions and form new payment plans; to restructure the loans emerging from the use ofelectricity, natural gas, telephone or water and the loans to tax offices and social securityinstitutions and followed in accordance with the provisions of the Law on the CollectionProcedure of the Public Receivables Legislation No.6183. In order to start inflation accountingfor eliminating the adverse affects of inflation on the financial statements, the Law No: 5024amending Tax Procedural Law, Income Tax Law and Corporate Tax Law came into force inJanuary 2003. Additionally, the Law No: 4842 amending Certain Laws came into force in April2003 and collected existing tax exceptions and exemptions under main Tax Law that enabledautomatic application of 40% of R&D investment discount. The Law No: 5101 amending certainlaws, came into force in March 2004 and this law aims to strengthen intellectual propertysystem, to prevent piracy considering international commitments and sector requests, toaddress the problems between the producer sectors and users in terms of using productssubject to intellectual property. New regulations on “Opening a Business Place and WorkLicense” have reduced the required number of documents from 52 to 6 for licensing of sanitarybusiness places, and from 43 to 7 for licensing of non-sanitary business places. Within thescope of the studies of the Technical Committee on SMEs, the Law No: 5331 on the definitionof SME came into force in April 2005. A single SMEs definition will be made in harmony with EUlegislation, and this definition shall be applied to the legislation and program of all theundertakings and organizations, the names of which include SMEs, medium size enterprise,129