Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in all industrial countries have a great need for technical and scientific data and product and market information. SMEs also produce useful information of mutual benefit for themselves. A proper and healthy development of SMEs in developing, as well as in many industrialized countries in Europe and elsewhere will require a number of support services, among which the development of infrastructural information services is a key element. Rapid progress in information technologies has reduced the cost and increased the availability of powerful workstations, personal computers and new communication facilities. This has created new opportunities for using these and other appropriate technologies to conceive practical information services for SMEs. This book contains the proceedings of an international seminar on distri- buted database systems for SMEs held in Beijing, People's Republic of China, in May 1989. The seminar was organized as a joint undertaking of the Institute of Scientific and Technological Information of China (ISTIC), the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) and the Commission of the European Communities (CEC). Recommendations cover operational concepts, methodology and technologies to be applied in the various stages of infrastructural evolution. Dr. Ganzhorn is a member of the United Nations Advisory Committee on Science and Technology for Development, a body composed of 28 personalities of repute with diverse backgrounds from all over the world. He is a former Director of Science and Technology of IBM Europe, an Honorary Professor at the University of Karlsruhe and a former President of the German Physical Society. Dr. Faustoferri is an Information Systems Officer of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). At the time of the Beijing seminar, he was an Associate Expert with the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development (CSTD).