This paper presents a comparative analysis of the main policy approaches to promote SME development in Latin America. These are the approach of the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations. After discussing the critical features of these institutions' support to SMEs and their possible limitations, this work presents a personal approach, which is based upon two hypothesis. The first considers that deepening the national and regional industrialisation process affects positively the performance of SMEs; the second stresses the importance to design an industrial development strategy and policy in order to promote SME development. For this purpose, the author analyses the peculiar cases of Mexico and Costa Rica, which seemed to adopt a different approach in respect of the majority of the Latin American countries and governments. Similarly, this paper focuses on the long and successful SME support experience practiced by the European Union and its present industrial strategy. These cases seem to provide evidence that developing an industrial strategy to SME development in Latin America is likely to be the most plausible policy approach.