Supporting small enterprises in the context of new financial crisis of 2020: international experience

Abstract

Dramatic changes in the world economy since the beginning of 2020 have affected virtually all entrepreneurship industries and segments, the small enterprise segment in particular. Temporary "frozen" operation, as well as the number of small enterprises being reduced due to the coronavirus outbreak and related restrictions, may in general lead to liquidation of a significant sector share. To avoid the trend, governments of different countries seek to introduce truly unprecedented measures to support, or rather to preserve small enterprises. Despite the fact that the targets of small enterprise assistance remained the same, scopes, conditions and scales of its provision have changed. Current crisis response measures can be treated as experimental - they are not always effective, not always accessible, and do not always have a target audience and a corresponding financial and economic focus. Governments are assumed to succeed in finding the optimal program target by trial and error, the program that would be effective and actually would support small enterprises against the background of the new financial crisis of 2020. In this context, the international exchange of the best, most successful, practices is extremely important.