According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, newly approved small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) credit registered annual growth in the second half of 2021. In the meantime, the outstanding balance of SME loans rose year-on-year while the share of SME loans to major industries remained stable.
New lending approved
In the second half of 2021, new SME credit limit approved by Macao banks totalled MOP12.1 billion, a drop of 37.5% from the first half of 2021 but up 48.1% from the same period of 2020. The collateralised ratio, which indicates the proportion of credit limit with tangible assets pledged, was 71.5%, a fall of 7.4 percentage points from the last survey period but up 13.1 percentage points when compared with the same period of 2020.
Credit utilisation
As at end-2021, the outstanding balance of SME loans decreased 1.2% from end-June 2021 but increased 7.0% from a year earlier to MOP93.4 billion. Compared to the last survey period, outstanding SME loans to “manufacturing industries” rose 0.9% whereas those to “wholesale and retail trade” and “construction and public works” dropped 3.3% and 1.7% respectively.
The utilisation rate, defined as the proportion of outstanding credit balance to the credit limit granted, fell 0.8 percentage points from six months ago or 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier to 81.6%.
Delinquent loans
At end-2021, the outstanding balance of delinquent SME loans decreased 5.1% from six months ago but increased 7.6% from the preceding year to MOP523.3 million. The delinquency ratio, the fraction of delinquent loans to total SME loans outstanding, dropped 0.02 percentage points from end-June 2021 to 0.56%. When compared with end-2020, the ratio remained virtually unchanged.