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The abbreviation SME occurs commonly in the EU and in international organizations, such as the World Bank , the United Nations and the WTO . The term Small or Medium sized Business or SMB has become more standard in a few other countries EU Member States traditionally had their own definition of what constitutes an SME, for example the traditional definition in Germany had a limit of 500 Employee s, while (for example) in Belgium it could have been 100. But nowadays the EU has started to standardise the concept. Its current definition categorises companies with fewer than 50 employees as "small", and those with fewer than 250 as "medium". As of 2005, Germany will use the definition of the European Commission . Business Enterprise s of fewer than 10 employees often class as SOHO (for Small Office/home Office ). In most economies, smaller enterprises predominate. In the EU, SMEs comprise approximately 99% of all Firm s and employ between them about 65 million people. SMEs, in contrast to Big Business , have a reputation for Innovation . For this reason, and because of their difficulties in attracting Capital , national and regional fostering of SMEs commonly occurs. In the United States there is no standard definition for a small business. Generally it is determined by the industry in which it competes, where income and number of employees will determine whether a company is a small business or not. Many government contracts are "set aside" (i.e., competition is limited to small businesses only, most often involving services or minor construction). EXTERNAL LINKS
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