TCG targets big leap in new SME clients

To help achieve the goal, Nitid Manoonporn said TCG would educate SMEs in how to manage their financial system and costs, and how to operate their business, among other things, by aiming to get around 8,000 of them to attend seminars it plans to hold during the course of the year.
TCG also has an agreement with 17 banks to guarantee up to Bt100 billion-worth of loans to SMEs next year through to the middle of 2018, following the government-approved portfolio-guarantee scheme phase 6, worth Bt100 billion, which was signed in the middle of this year, he explained.
SMEs can begin to exploit their growth potential when they get a guaranteed loan to serve their expansion through the provision of the necessary cash flow to run their business, he said. As of December 15, TCG had guaranteed loans worth Bt84.51 billion this year, almost fulfilling its full-year target of Bt85 billion with two weeks still to go. 
Guarantees had been provided for 51,115 new SMEs, mainly in the fields of service business, food and beverages, agriculture, garments, consumer products, and auto business.
TCG also has a goal to boost guaranteed loans to Bt100 billion a year for micro-businesses, start-ups, innovative ventures, and small SMEs, aiming to serve a million such clients by 2020, Nitid said.
For micro-businesses, the corporation has launched a second-phase programme to guarantee loans of not more than Bt200,000 per account, for a total of Bt13.5 billion, between now and the end of the year. It targets between 130,000 and 150,000 accounts in this market segment.
In the first phase of the programme last year, TCG guaranteed loans totalling Bt5 billion for 49,000 micro-business accounts, its president said.
For SMEs, the TCG plans to focus on agriculture and agricultural processing under a “One Tambon One SME” project, in collaboration with the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, to guarantee loans for the bank’s customers, he added.
According to the TCG’s database, the total number of SMEs, start-ups and innovative and micro-businesses in Thailand is around 2.7 million, but only 700,000 are able to get loans from the banks to support their expansion – with most of the rest having to seek financing from non-bank lenders.
“If we can guarantee loans for SMEs that have to borrow from non-banks, this will help them get more money for business expansion and improve their long-term stability,” Nitid said. 
TCG’s total cumulative loan guarantees are currently valued at Bt519.88 billion, covering roughly 220,000 SMEs.