Please read the “Methodology Note on the MSME Economic Indicators 2019” along with the country specific comments in the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Economic Indicators (MSME-EI) MS Excel workbook before using the data. MSME-EI presents secondary data collected by various institutions (statistical institutes, ministries, international organizations, small business promotion agencies, research institutions and others) using different methods (survey, census and others).

This note provides an overview of the MSME Economic Indicators (MSME-EI) database, previously known as the MSME Country Indicators database. It collates the official country level definitions of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) from over 176 economies. The comprehensive database is a unique data source that highlights the variety of definitions, allowing the IFC to assess the use of the definition across economies.
The latest data suggests the following observations:
First, the number of employees continues to be the most widely used variable for defining MSMES across economies. However, the thresholds for classifying an enterprise by size vary across countries — and, sometimes, even within a country.
Second, in the 77 economies where data is available, there are 322 million formal MSMEs employing almost 72 percent of private sector employees.
Third, MSME density as measured by the number of formal MSMEs per 1,000 people, is higher in high-income economies. However, the growth rate in the number of MSMEs is highest among low- and middle-income economies and countries in Europe and Central Asia.
Since 2007, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has been collecting publicly available official MSME definitions used by economies around the world. This has enabled the IFC to build four large cross-section and time-series data sets with observations for the years 2007, 2010, 20141, and 2019.2 The previous updates were called MSME Country Indicators. However, this update, launched in 2019, is called MSME Economic Indicators (MSME-EI) to reflect the expanded number of new economic indicators covered by the dataset. The data for the 2019 update were collected between July and December of 2018.

This note provides an overview of new data on MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprise) Country Indicators for 132 economies. There are 125 million formal MSMEs in this set of economies, including 89 million in emerging markets. Descriptive statistical analysis is presented on the relationship between formal MSME density (number of formally registered MSMEs per 1,000 people) and key obstacles for MSMEs, such as access to finance and informality. This analysis shows that formal MSMEs are more common in high-income economies, but that in low- and middle-income economies, MSME density is rising at a faster pace. Second, although there is significant variance in the countries’ definitions of MSMEs, around a third of the countries covered define MSMEs as having up to 250 employees. Third, formal MSMEs employ more than one-third of the world’s labor force, but the percentage drops significantly with income level. Fourth, MSMEs are more likely to identify access to finance as their biggest obstacle than are large firms. In fact, in economies with a higher percentage of firms with no formal credit, MSME density is lower. Finally, a larger informal sector is associated with lower formal MSME density. Measures of barriers to firm entry and exit, such as the minimum capital requirement and the recovery rate in case of bankruptcy, are also associated with lower formal MSME density.

Learn more about analysis done in 2010