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hey also tend to pay disproportionately more in taxes and social security contributions than either their larger and smaller counterparts. Larger enterprises, especially multinationals, often find a way to reduce their tax obligations through transfer pricing, royalty payments, and negotiated tax holidays. Microenterprises, on the other hand, often fall in the informal sector, neither paying taxes nor making social security contributions. Yet if SMEs constitute a critical dimension of growth and development and are often well positioned to achieve high revenue and profit growth, why have private and public financing institutions alike tended to avoid investing in them? The reasons are multiple and, for the most part, understandable. For private investors, the amount of work required to invest relatively small sums into several SMEs seems unattractive pared to the work needed to support fewer investments in larger panies. Moreover, investing in local SMEs also often involves working with entrepreneurs who are less familiar with conventional financing relationships, business practices, and the English language than principals of larger firms. Accordingly, most private capital would much prefer to invest in a few largeasset There are broader issues to be considered as well, including the lack of transparency in local legal systems and governments that make investing in these countries difficult at best. enterprises in fields such as pharmaceuticals, telemunications or privatized industry rather than in smaller panies with relatively few assets, low capitalization and a perceived greater vulnerability to market conditions. Public development institutions can also encounter high administrative costs in making SME investments. These can be coupled with perceptions that local SMEentrepreneurs may not be trustworthy, and that wo