Tailoring Policy to the Needs of Small and Medium-sized Business

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can make an important contribution to economic growth and employment in the Netherlands, but government regulations must then be geared more to the SME sector. At present, large companies are too often taken as the benchmark for government policy for the market sector, the WRR says in its report Tailoring policy to the Needs of Small and Medium-sized Business: part 1 (Report no. 30, 1987).

SMEs are not a miniature version of large companies

The substance and form of government measures are currently geared too heavily to the organisation and capacity to act of large enterprises. SMEs are not a miniature version of large enterprises. The sector has a far smaller absorption capacity and a large degree of heterogeneity. Government policies, such as incentive subsidies for business, must take more account of the characteristics of these companies.

Preliminary opinions

The report was prepared on the basis of preliminary opinions produced by external experts at the request of the WRR. These opinions are published in part two of the report. The content of the preliminary reports is the responsibility of the individual authors.