Financial Support to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Slovakia

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to examine the system of small and medium-sized enterprises´ support in Slovakia and to analyze how this support is perceived by the enterprises themselves. In general, there are two forms of government support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – financial and non-financial – and the main focus of this paper is on the financial support, which matters more to entrepreneurs. In the first part, the paper deals with financial support and SMEs from a theoretical point of view. Then the selected results of the questionnaire survey focused to the perceiving of the financial support by Slovak entrepreneurs are presented. The survey realized by the end of 2016 at the sample of selected small and medium-sized enterprises operating in Slovakia, which in the past received financial support from public sources and used it to raise their business in the global environment reveal deficiencies in the system of providing financial support to SMEs and point to a lack of financial resources for this support.