The capacity of smes with export-import activity from Bihor county to face the challenge of integration on the european single market in euro-regional context

Starting from the premises that the competitive capacity of the SMEs is determined by their nature: some of them having rapidly growing capacity, others being totally dependent on local or regional markets, the present paper aims to investigate the capacity of SMEs from Bihor county, which carry out export and import activity, to face the challenges of integration in the European Single Market, with the purpose to guide them towards that initiatives and measures that correspond to their nature, by exploiting the possibilities offered by structural funds. The paper presents the general situation of the SMEs from Bihor county focused on those which are part of intra-communitary trade, and, on the base of a questionnaire applied to a number of 50 of them, their perceptions regarding the threats and opportunities of the European Single Market, in order to increase the absorption of structural funds and to design a Euroregional strategy for the SME sector with direct benefits for the economic agents and communities from Romania and Hungary. The paper is based on the preliminary research results of the project called “The encouragement of SMEs which carry out import-export activity from Bihor county regarding the integration in the European Single Market through the development of cross-border business services”, financed by the PHARE CBC 2005 Programme. The data used have been offered for the mentioned project by Local SMEs Council, Oradea.