By 2025, there will 761,000 more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across five EU countries than there are now, according to research by the Centre for Economics Business Research. The largest uptick is expected in France and Germany, which will add 403,000 and 273,000 new SMEs respectively.
The findings, published in a report by Sage, project that the SME contribution to total business economic output (gross value added, or GVA) by 2025 will exceed 45% in all of those EU countries except Ireland. SMEs are expected to make up at least 99.6% of all businesses in these economies by then.
According to the Driving Economic Recovery report, SMEs in the five EU nations are also expected to increase the value of their economic contribution by €135bn between 2022 and 2025, with GVA growing by an average of 2.5% year on year.
In terms of economic contribution, German SMEs will be the strongest performers, with output estimated to rise by an average of 3.1% a year between 2022 and 2025, compared with an average of 2.5% for all businesses in Germany.
