In the European Union region, small enterprises are defined as those having 50 workers and an activity volume of 10 million Euros, while medium ones are those with 250 workers and an annual activity volume of 50 million Euros. In the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Industrial Development Fund adopts the criterion of the annual sales for defining small and medium enterprises whose annual sales do not exceed Rls 20 million for financing purposes according to “Kafallah” program. The World Bank has distributed a questionnaire to commercial banks to determine a definition for small and medium enterprises. The result of the questionnaire has showed that there is difference in banks’ definitions. However, it may be concluded that small enterprises are those with annual sales ranging from Rls 100 thousand to Rls 5 million and workers from 2 to 49. Medium enterprises are those with annual sales from Rls 5 million to 50 million and workers from 50 to 200. Dear audience, SMEs are characterized by many features including, simplicity of their establishment due to the low value of the capital needed for their foundation and operation, simplicity of their establishment procedures, and low cost of their establishment and administration because of the simplicity of their administrative structure. Moreover, SMEs are featured by the independent management by their owners who seek as much success as possible.
Muhammad Al-Jasser: Small and medium enterprises Opening speech by His Excellency Dr Muhammad Al-Jasser, Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), at the symposium on “Small and Medium Enterprises”, organized by the Institute of Banking in cooperation with the International Financing Corporation, Riyadh, 2 November 2010. *  *  *  Excellencies and honored audience, It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all in the headquarters of the Institute of Banking. I’m delighted to receive an invitation to deliver the opening speech for the symposium on “Small and Medium Enterprises” before this distinguished elite of participants and audience. I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to the colleagues at the Institute of Banking and International Finance Corporation (IFC) for organizing this symposium. I will try in this speech to shed light on some ideas related to the importance of the role of these enterprises in the national economy, challenges facing their growth, and provision of appropriate funding for them. Dear audience, The national economy consists of an integrated wide range of public and private enterprises which utilize available material and human factors of production for providing continuous flows of goods and services to meet the needs of the domestic society and part of external demand. As a matter of fact, the sizes of local firms vary according to the size of labour, capital, sales…etc. It is mistakenly believed that large-scale enterprises are the main impetus for economic activity.