MACAU, August 11 - According to statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, newly approved small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) credit decreased in the first half of 2023.  Meanwhile, the outstanding balance of SME loans retreated while the share of SME loans to major industries remained stable.

New lending approved

In the first half of 2023, new SME credit limit approved by Macao banks totalled MOP6.4 billion, down 15.4% from the second half of 2022.  The collateralised ratio, which indicates the proportion of credit limit with tangible assets pledged, dropped 3.6 percentage points from the last survey period to 51.5%.

Credit utilisation

As at end-June 2023, the outstanding balance of SME loans edged down by 0.3% from end-2022 to MOP85.0 billion, attributable to the repayment of loans with large denomination. Compared to the previous survey period, outstanding SME loans to “manufacturing industries” and “restaurants, hotels and similar” increased by 5.2% and 2.6% respectively whereas those to “construction and public works” and “wholesale and retail trade” both decreased by 1.4%.

The utilisation rate, defined as the proportion of outstanding credit balance to the credit limit granted, kept virtually unchanged from six months ago at 81.0%.

Delinquent loans

At end-June 2023, the outstanding balance of delinquent SME loans was MOP1.2 billion.  The fraction of delinquent loans to total SME loans outstanding (the delinquency ratio) was 1.4%, up 0.7 percentage points from end-2022.