Challenges in Front of the Financing of the Innovation Active Small and Medium-sized Enterprises – Regional Prospects

Abstract

In Bulgaria exist regional disproportions related to the level of innovation activeness, and among the most unfavorable positions is the South East Planning Region (SEPR). On the other side, the innovative active small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are not open enough and do not demonstrate high level of financial sources absorption like investment funds, other companies working in their networks, etc. This sub-group experiences sharply the problems for covering their capital investments at some and overcapacity at other of them, but at the same time it is amazingly active in search for advice and assistance for development. Starting from such findings, the analyses in this study confirmed one of its hypothesis stating that the different financial instruments and schemes for promoting the business are required to undergo substantial adaptation in order to meet the certain needs of the innovation active SMEs and this is more related with their characteristics than with the regional specifics. Partly was rejected the other hypothesis stating that the innovation active SMEs in each of the regions and especially those in the SEPR, meet in a different degree the separate financial challenges in front of them.