Sustainable rural development through rural entrepreneurship.

The sustainable rural development is one of the most complex contemporary issues. As in essence it presupposes reaching a balance between the need to preserve the rural economic, ecological and cultural space and the “modernization” tendency of the rural economic activity and life. The pleading for the promotion of entrepreneurship initiatives in the rural area starts from the need for rural economy diversification. In general, no rural development program can be conceived in the absence of an essential role played by agriculture, but the rural economy is more developed and more dynamic if it has a more diverse structure, with a higher share of the non-agricultural economy. In this context, the paper presents aspects of the sustainable rural development through the development of a viable network of private small and medium-sized enterprises.