One business participant noted that it was contrary to democratic principles to expect a company to enforce international human rights standards locally in this way.

An alternative is the membership of SMEs in an umbrella body representing business as a whole, with the creation of an SME Committee to articulate SME interest.

Measured as in house R D expenses as a percentage of sales to represent firm's indigenous technological activities.

Conducting interviews with a selection of enterprises representative of the mail sample.

Suggestions included the inclusion of representatives of indigenous communities, southern non governmental organizations, local business, and State owned enterprises.

Cairo 1996. In Haiti, eight national bodies claim to represent the business sector.

All types of SMEs need to be represented so that they can constitute the true voice of small business which can easily be identified by the Government.

7. Certain delegations felt that compliance with environmental standards might entail excessive costs for SMEs, particularly those in developing countries.

The Government should play a role as facilitator in encouraging the formation of SME representative associations, as well as research relating to SMEs interests.

One delegate shared the experiences of his country as it related to enhancement of SME competitiveness.

31. The representative of Turkey said that enterprises, especially small and medium sized ones, should be supported, as they played a primary role in employment creation, manufacturing and export development.

Where there is a problem of under representation of SME interests in business representative bodies which encompass members of all sizes, Governments should encourage the creation of a specific SME committee within the wider organization

Modernization of the institutional environment for enterprises

(b) Except as specifically provided in the agreement between the applicant and the Enterprise, the Enterprise shall not by reason of its participation be otherwise obligated to provide funds or credits or issue guarantees or otherwise accept any financial liability whatsoever for, or on behalf of, the joint venture arrangement, nor shall the Enterprise be required to subscribe for additional participation so as to maintain its proportionate participation in the joint venture arrangement.

While employer representatives base their counter arguments mainly on the ability of the establishment to pay.

The need to have representation of national standards bodies and SMEs was stressed.

Experience shows that the development of subcontracting arrangements between large firms and SMEs can give an incentive for large firms to provide financial, technical and other assistance to SMEs.

41. Incoherence in the formulation of macroeconomic and enterprise specific policies is often more costly for SMEs than for larger enterprises.

The majority of the experts came from civil society and represented business associations, employers apos federations, SME support agencies and other private sector organizations that have a stake in the development of SMEs.

His delegation recognized the need for and importance of analytical work and policy formulation in the field of enterprise development, particularly the development of SMEs.

Thus, the Hungarian Small Business Association, founded as a not for profit organization in 1990, has emerged as the main umbrella organization for representing the interests of SMEs.

The issue of the representativeness of SME associations, given their heterogeneity, was raised.

16. Mr. TANASESCU (Romania) expressed his delegation apos s support for the statement delivered by the representative of Luxembourg on behalf of the European Union on business and development.

Table 7. Top ten SMEs and large sized enterprises from Indian manufacturing

56. The representative of Mexico described the experience of his country in the field of trade efficiency and enterprise promotion.

7. To further facilitate dialogue between the public and private sector, it was considered necessary that there be balanced representation of all sectors of the business community, including SMEs.

However, 51 per cent of enterprises with Internet access used the Internet to obtain information from public authorities, 46 per cent for obtaining forms and 32 per cent for returning filled in forms.

(2) to set down the scheme for personnel placement, solicit the opinions of the workers and the workers' representatives congress of the enterprise or submit the scheme to the worker's representatives congress for discussing

The representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran said that, on the issue of enhancing enterprise competitiveness, SMEs in developing countries did not necessarily benefit from TNC SME linkages, mostly because of structural weaknesses in SMEs.

Experience shows that SMEs normally internationalize their activities faster than large firms.

This is partly a problem of the lack of effective representation of SMEs in the process of government policy making.

It was argued that environmental and business groups generally adopted an approach that was not constrained by the national interests represented by Party delegations.

In the discussions that followed, one of discussants suggested that, in promoting competitiveness of SMEs, there was a need to conduct evaluations of programmes that supported enterprise development to better assess their impact.

However, the relevance of these institutions, including their representativeness, is restricted due to the fact that it represents mainly larger companies with more than 50 employees, with little or no representation of smaller enterprises.

166. The collective agreements also extend a range of facilities to trade union delegates for the exercise of trade union activity in the enterprise.

36. The representative of the Russian Federation underlined the importance of UNCTAD s work on enterprise development strategy.

13. The Secretary General sees some advantage to improving representation in the Council by including non governmental organizations, the media and members of the business community.

If there are unions based on a trade and unions based on an enterprise or an industry in competition with one another, the first mentioned may conclude a collective agreement for its trade provided that the number of its members is greater than the number of workers in the same trade who are members of the union based on an enterprise or an industry.

The following is the view of an employer on the placement of female trainees in his company

Table 9

OFDI by software SMEs, similar to manufacturing SMEs, has been prominent since the 1990s, which coincided with the second wave of Indian OFDI (figure 4).

Our statistical analysis of the entry and exit patterns of entrepreneurs in the Brazilian ethanol industry shows that the more efficient acquired the less efficient. Most underperforming ethanol companies went bankrupt or were taken over by entrepreneurs who had successful track records in running efficient operations.

The Business of Business is More Than Business

With respect to the types of enterprises, one may distinguish between informal sector enterprises, essentially microenterprises, and enterprises in the formal sector, which include some microenterprises, SMEs and large firms.

The Africa Asia Business Forum aims to stimulate trade and investment between countries in both regions, bringing together business representatives to discuss possible joint ventures, bilateral agreements, enterprise exchanges and a variety of business instruments.