Small and medium enterprises are an important part of the Belgian, Dutch, and Luxembourgish economies. When looking at
, the mkb (the Dutch abbreviation for SMEs) equaled around 450,000 companies, compared to more than one million self-employed people in 2023. In Belgium, kmo (the Belgian Dutch abbreviation) and PME (the French abbreviation) were responsible for almost two-thirds of all
in 2022. In 2021, the
was higher than in some European countries, such as France and the Netherlands, but notably below Luxembourg.
SMEs: a fine addition?
How much value do these small business enterprises add to GDP in the Benelux? In all three countries, SMEs generated over half of total value added. The
share of Luxembourgish SMEs in total value in the country was higher than that from SMEs in Belgium and the Netherlands, with medium-sized companies from the Grand Duchy (companies which have between 50 to 249 employees) being responsible for around 27 percent of all total value added in the non-financial business economy. This was different in the two other Benelux-countries. The
impact of different Belgian SME types on total value added was highest among micro-companies (companies with between one and nine employees), whereas small-sized companies (between 10 and 49 employees) in the Netherlands had a smaller
impact on total value added than other SMEs in the country.
Small and medium enterprises, at your service
Which Benelux countries have the most SMEs? In both the Netherlands and Belgium, services was the industry where these companies were most prevalent. Over 92,000 of all
SMEs in Wallonia (Belgium’s French-speaking region) were active in services in 2020, a figure more than twice the amount of SMEs active in construction. The
most common SME sectors in the Netherlands were retail and specialized business services, together making up around 670,000 companies in 2022.This is similar to Luxembourg, as
the professional, scientific and technical activities sector and the wholesale and retail trade had the most number of SMEs in 2022, totalling almost 20,000.
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