The Role of Small and Medium Enterprises in Economic Development, Case of Egypt

Small and medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the modern economy; the research aims to identify the role of small and medium enterprises in the economic development in the Arab Republic of Egypt and identify the most important problems and obstacles facing these projects , The results show that, Egypt has 2.5 million small, medium and micro enterprises, representing 99% of the total non-agricultural projects, about 78% of these projects did not receive any banking facilities, The performance SMEs is very weak in terms of export to foreign markets. SMEs can contribute in the process of accelerating development because it does not require huge investments at the same time, and is able to increase employment and mobilize small individual savings, as well as help in the preparation of technical cadres. It also enables the development of exports, including the acquisition of foreign currency and thus improving the balance of payments of developing countries, in addition to their contribution to the formation of a balanced industrial sector that serves the national economy, However Small and medium enterprises in Egypt face many problems that limit the ability to develop them. This sector is still suffering from basic obstacles such as difficulty obtaining finance and guarantees, and many other difficulties related to the inappropriate business environment, laws and regulations, poor infrastructure and banking so that Egyptian government must put a clear approach and specific objectives for the development of these projects.