Prospects and Constraints of the SMEs Sector from the East-Planning Region in the Republic of Macedonia: A SWOT Analysis Survey of the Entrepreneurial Environment

This article reveals some major prospects and constraints of the Small and Medium Enterprises Sector from the East-Planning Region of the Republic of Macedonia. The economic profile presented here, only reaffirms its great significance for the overall condition of the regional economy as the numbers show that over 99% of all active enterprises from this region fall into this category. The analysis of the prospects and constraints is designed as a comparative study of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats gathered from the interviews conducted and the documents examined. It will provide further indication and a starting point for the following series of additional researches within the project named “Forms of finance of the growth of the small and medium-sized enterprises with a focus of the East-Planning Region in the Republic of Macedonia”. Specifically, the intention of the ongoing project which is internally funded by the “Goce-Delchev” University from Stip, is to identify the most dominant sources of finance, detect if they pose limitations for the SMEs, and promote some alternative and modern forms of finance. Also, the project will produce a proposal of a possible framework of enterprise policy intended for the policy makers and the other interested parties in this sector. During the assessment of the standard elements of this framework, a set of interacting measures will be recommended also, for the purpose of enhancement of the entrepreneurial environment. Nevertheless, the survey reveals that indeed, the financial problems are real and present for the small and medium firms, and that the traditional sources such as bank loans, do not match the growing needs for finance of these firms, not in a quantitative nor in a qualitative sense irrespectively. This gives only a further justification of the researching efforts we plan to accomplish amid the continuing project we are involved in.