Definition for SMEs broadened

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Companies with less than 250 workers are considered medium sized.

Turkey has changed the definition of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), increasing the upper limit of annual net sales or any of the financial balance sheet items to 40 million Turkish Liras annually from the current 25 million liras, according to a decree issued by the Cabinet, published in the Official Gazette yesterday.

Micro enterprises are defined as firms with less than 10 employees and no more than 1 million liras in annual net sales or any of the financial balance sheet items.

Small enterprises are firms with less than 50 employees and no more than 8 million liras in annual net sales or any of the financial balance sheet items.

The number of employees for medium size enterprises must be less than 250.

79 pct of workforce

The updated definitions will allow larger firms (in terms of turnover) to benefit from state support to SMEs.

SMEs make up 99.9 percent of all enterprises in Turkey, while they employ 77.8 percent of the total workforce and pay 51.5 percent of wages combined, according to the latest data available from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), the official statistics agency.

These enterprises produced 59.6 percent of total exports and accounted for 39.9 percent of total imports in 2011.