8  Chart 9: The importance of SMEs  99.8  99.8  99.8  99.8  80  99.8  99.8  99.8 99.7  79.4  75.9 67.6  69.8  68.3  73.7 65.5  66.3  74.8  69.5  74.4  60  99.7  50  99.7  99.7  99.7  78.2  70  Macedonia  99.8  Share of number of employees in total in 2015, enterprises employing less than 250 persons (in %)  90  Croatia  Share of number of enterprises in total in 2015, enterprises employing less than 250 persons (in %)  99.9  40  99.6  30 99.6  20 10  EU28  Bulgaria  Slovenia  Romania  Poland  Hungary  Czech Republic  Lithuania  Estonia  European Union EU28  SEE  Share of value added at factor cost in total in 2015, enterprises employing less than 250 persons (in %) 68.3  60  64.5  64.4 55.1  53.0  51.1  52.2  Romania  70.0  70  CEE  Source: Eurostat and SSO of RM. Poland  75.6  Baltics  SEE  Hungary  80  Macedonia  Croatia  Bulgaria  European Union  Slovenia  Romania  Hungary  Czech Republic  Poland CEE  Czech Republic  Baltics  Lithuania  Latvia  Estonia Source: Eurostat.
Latvia  0  99.5  64.5 58.5  55.9  50 40 30 20 10  Baltics  CEE  EU28  Macedonia  Croatia  Bulgaria  European Union  Slovenia  Lithuania  Latvia  Estonia  0  SEE  Source: Eurostat. To depict more closely the state of the SMEs and the own perception of their business environment, in the next section we will focus on the results of the Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE survey of the EC and the ECB). The Survey itself pinpoints the concentration of SMEs in trade and services (around 70% on average, both for the EU and the region), with many of the companies not having export of goods and services in their total turnover (around half of surveyed companies). The survey data also indicate that SMEs from the EU and the region face rather similar challenges in terms of the main perceived obstacles in doing their business. Finding customers and availability of skilled labor seem to be the main issues of the SMEs from the European Union and from the region. Thus, 7-8% of the companies perceives access to financing as the most important current problem, but there are countries, Macedonia in particular, where this percentage is higher (13%), and with a similar weight compared to most of the other obstacles7.