New thinking needed for SME finance

摘要

From the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington, DC, in October to the G20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia one month later, boosting growth has been the catchphrase. The G20 has pledged to raise global economic growth by two percentage points, and believes it has found measures to achieve 1.8 percentage points of that already. The missing link preoccupying policymakers is small and medium enterprises (SMEs). They are important as the backbone of employment provision, so their growth provides a different and politically important dynamic. For SMEs to flourish, they need working capital. And so the focus has turned to stepping up the availability of credit for SMEs. Two potential responses come to mind: policy incentives and innovation.