LAS PYMES EN EL PROCESO DE INDUSTRIALIZACIÓN DEL CACAO EN LA PROVINCIA DE LOS RÍOS, ECUADOR.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are important sources of social and economic development in the Latin American region. This paper aims: (1) To study the state of the process of industrialization of cocoa, produced and marketed by PyMES located in the province of Los Ríos, Ecuador, (2) To test the effectiveness of some proposed strategies to overcome the deficiencies found in the process. To achieve these goals, statistical methods were applied to a group of ten SMEs in the region. It was concluded that there exist deficiencies in the process and that the proposed strategies are effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]