ABSTRACT
Virtually all governments now have specific policies for the promotion of small business and dedicated machinery for implementing them. This is not a recent development, though interest in the subject increased after the Second World War. This interest increased further from the 1980s, stimulated by rising unemployment and the results of research on the employment creation role of SMEs mentioned in Chapter 2. The Netherlands set up the RND Consultancy Service as long ago as 1910, while Japan introduced a special programme to provide financial assistance for Farms and Small and Medium Industry in 1912. AOYAMA (1999) traces the origins of comprehensive small business policies in Japan to the 1930s. By 1937, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the predecessor of Japan’s MITI, initiated programmes which included assistance in financing, technical and management support aimed at promoting rapid industrialisation in the peripheral areas. US policies, and indeed those of other countries, also have their roots in the 1930s Depression era, particularly in support for farming.1 Another root of small business policy, in Europe especially, is the regulation of an artisanal sector that goes back to the trade guilds of the Middle Ages.
