EEMEA SMEs are confident about business growth

From surviving to thriving in the post-COVID world, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) region are optimistic about business growth this year. These are the findings of the second edition of the Mastercard EEMEA SME Confidence Index.

The second edition of the survey reveals that 75% of SMEs in EEMEA project similar or increased revenue in the next 12 months. Top three areas for support required by SMEs are training and upskilling staff, access to a wider range of financial services and better telco infrastructure.

SMEs have identified accepting omnichannel digital payments, digitizing business operations and training and upskilling staff as the main drivers of growth.

As markets navigate an increasingly dynamic economic landscape, SMEs continue to face a multitude of challenges. These include insufficient access to credit, staff retention issues, incline in the cost of goods and services, and the lingering fallout of the pandemic in some countries.