Nowadays, in most countries in the world, a growing emphasis is placed on supporting entrepreneurial development, because the development and economic growth of the country depends largely of the entrepreneurship development, which is predominantly focused on SMEs. The aim of this paper is to argue the difference in the development of SMEs between the European Union and the Republic of Moldova, based on the statistical data attesting the intensity of the development of SMEs and their shares according to their fields of activity. Often, the contribution of SMEs to non-financial business sectors and the importance of the sectors for SMEs determines the development of the economy. In this aspect, there is felt the negative impact of the overweight of the wholesale and retail trade in the turnover structure of SMEs in the Republic of Moldova. On the other hand, the distribution of SMEs in sectors where the manufacturing share is extremely low is largely due to business finance problems. At the same time, the article examines the results of the youth respondents survey conducted within the HEIFYE project in the Republic of Moldova, which highlights in particular the financial problems of entrepreneurship in our country.