ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, concentrating on the development of SMEs and their structures. The actual development of SMEs, which comprise the main part of the private sector, is difficult to analyse because of the lack of adequate and precise statistics. National enterprise registers only paint a very rough picture of the temporal development of the number of SMEs because of changing regulations over time regarding registration. The higher proportion of medium and large enterprises in the Slovakian manufacturing sector is mainly due to the lagging privatisation process in the country plus a generally lower number of start-ups. SMEs and private enterprises generally play an important role in the development and growth of their national economies. The absorption capacity of SMEs, however, might prove a critical point in relation to the overall employment situation.
