Recent studies in entrepreneurship and regional competitiveness reveal the increasing importance of medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, which represent an autonomous segment of the SME sector, and help explain the success of modern German industry. However, both developed and post-socialist economies are finding that the development of medium-sized enterprises is a challenging task, facing several obstacles. This paper presents the results of a statistical survey on existing and emerging medium-sized enterprises in Hungarian manufacturing. Using a full database of Hungarian enterprises between 2000 and 2013, it is found that the medium-sized enterprise segment has undergone shrinkage instead of expansion, although promising specialisation patterns are also apparent in selected regions, and even less successful regions have their competitive enterprise
