According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, new small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) credit approved expanded from a year ago in the first half of 2017. Meanwhile, the outstanding balance of SME loans also recorded annual growth with the share of SME loans to major industries remained stable.
New lending approved
In the first half of 2017, new SME credit limit approved by Macao banks totalled MOP12.6 billion, down 7.3% from the second half of 2016 but up 26.8% from the same period last year. The collateralised ratio, which indicates the proportion of credit limit with tangible assets pledged, was 86.3%, up 2.4 percentage points when compared with the last survey period or 4.7 percentage points when compared with the same period of 2016.
Credit utilisation
As at end-June 2017, the outstanding value of total SME loans increased 4.3% from end-December 2016 or 7.4% from a year earlier to MOP72.7 billion. On an annual basis, SME loans to “restaurants, hotels and similar activities” and “construction and public works” increased at respective rates of 28.4% and 14.6% whereas those to “transport, warehouse and communications” and “manufacturing industries” dropped 14.4% and 11.0% respectively.
The utilisation rate, defined as the proportion of outstanding credit balance to the credit limit granted, increased 1.7 percentage points from six months ago or 6.8 percentage points from a year earlier to 68.5%.
Delinquent loans
At end-June 2017, the outstanding balance of delinquent SME loans dropped11.1% from six months ago to MOP514.0 million, which was higher than the balance of MOP306.4 million a year ago. Te delinquency ratio, a ratio of delinquent loans outstanding balance to total SME loans outstanding, dropped 0.12percentage points from end-2016 but rose 0.25percentage points from a yearearlierto 0.71%.