Resumen
The incorporation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in international trade is an alternative that allows this business sector to increase its competitiveness and expand its markets. The objective of this research is to analyze the strategies and challenges that these companies face to participate in international markets. With this purpose, a review of the literature is organized into four key concepts: government support to SMEs, Global Value Chains, Exporting SMEs and their organization in Clusters. The theoretical and empirical results, related to developing countries, indicate that there is a great ignorance of these companies and their countries? governments regarding the evolution of the Global Value Chains, in addition to the fact that the level of competitiveness required by global markets is too high for those companies. In conclusion, it is necessary to seek a greater impact of government support to SMEs to increase their competitiveness standards required by international markets, taking into consideration their huge heterogeneity. Likewise, promoting several internalization alternatives in which these companies have access to better technologies and innovation processes until now concentrated in large companies.