Strategies of the Development of Entrepreneurship and SME

introduction of e-signatures, only Albania hasn’t introduced a full range of secondaryregulations and hasn’t moved towards their increasing acceptance in on-line transactions.Application of Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) is still in its infancy. Using an effectiveRIA approach to legislation that directly affects SMEs has high priority, and progress is beingmade.Opportunities for small enterprises to take advantage of the Single Market could beimproved through export promotion programs and policies to enhance SMEs’ competitiveness.The development of export promotion and competitiveness programs has been limited, withfragmented initiatives that do not follow an overall strategy for export promotion and increasedcompetitiveness. Albania needs to better prepare small enterprises to benefit from EU markets,with concrete support in areas such as the adoption of international and EU technical andphytosanitary standards and associated company certification systems. To ensure that thereare effective co-ordination and implementation, these actions should follow a clear strategy andbe supported by an export promotion agency.3.2. BULGARIA3.2.1. SME SECTOR DEVELOPMENTIn recent years Bulgaria registers progress in maintaining macroeconomic stability. GDPper capita is on a positive trend and in the period 1997–2005 it doubled in amount to EUR2,771. Major drivers of growth in the country are a thriving private sector and increasinginvestments. Private sector’s share in the economy is up, to 68.2 % of GDP. Acceleratedinvestment activity contributes to a dynamic development of industry which in 2005. registersgrowth of 7.3 per cent and generates now over 30 per cent of the value added in the economy.In January 2007 Bulgaria became full EU member and has obtained large opportunities forfurther economic developmentDue to the macroeconomic conditions the role of small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) in the Bulgarian economy is steadily increasing. In the period from 2002 to 2006, theBulgarian Government played active role in SME sector fostering, based on National Strategyfor Encouragement of Small & Medium Enterprises Development for 2002–2006. Creation offavourable environment and conditions for development of a competitive SME sector, which willaccelerate the economic growth of the country through preservation of macro-economicstability is introduced as main objective of the Strategy. According to this objective, theBulgarian Government recognized following priorities:• Simplification of administrative and legislative environment for SMEs;• Financial environment improvement;• Innovations and technological development support;• SME europeization and internationalization;• Improvement of the access to information and services;• Provision of conditions for SME development in regional aspect;• Encouragement of the entrepreneur spirit and skills.The role of SMEs in Bulgarian economy and achievments of Strategy implementationcan be summarized as follows, according to data of Ministry of Economy and Energy, Republicof Bulgaria, issued in Annual Report on the Condition and Development of SMEs in Bulgaria for2006 (data 17 are related to year 2004):17 Data are based on survey of Ministry of Economy and Energy, wich includes only population of non-financial privateenterprises in the • to • sections range of the National Classification of Economic Activities28