According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, newly approved small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) credit retreated in the second half of 2020.  On the other hand, 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 2020, new SME credit limit approved by Macao banks totalled MOP8.2 billion, down 46.5% from the first half of 2020 or 4.2% from the same period of 2019.  The collateralised ratio, which indicates the proportion of credit limit with tangible assets pledged, was 58.4%, up 9.5 percentage points when compared with the last survey period but down 2.6 percentage points when compared with the same period of 2019.

Credit utilisation

As at end-2020, the outstanding balance of SME loans decreased 1.7% from end-June 2020 but rose 1.3% from a year earlier to MOP87.3 billion. Compared to the last survey period, outstanding SME loans to “information technology” and “construction and public works” increased at respective rates of 7.1% and 2.9% whereas those to “restaurants, hotels and similar”, “transport, warehouse and communications” and “wholesale and retail trade” dropped 5.8%, 4.4% and 2.5% respectively.

The utilisation rate, defined as the proportion of outstanding credit balance to the credit limit granted, rose 0.1 percentage point from six months ago or 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier to 83.0%. 

Delinquent loans

At end-2020, the outstanding balance of delinquent SME loans grew 113.1% from six months ago or 193.8% from the preceding year to MOP486.5 million.  The delinquency ratio, the fraction of delinquent loans to total SME loans outstanding, rose 0.30 percentage points from end-June 2020 or 0.37 percentage points from end-2019 to 0.56%.