Credit corporation to increase SME loan guarantee to 30%
The Thai Credit Guarantee Corporation (TCG) will increase its loan guarantee for small and medium-sized enterprises from 18 per cent to 30 per cent if the Cabinet approves the move.
TCG senior executive vice president Wichet Warakul said the board of the Office of Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion agreed to make the increase at a meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula last month but the Finance Ministry had to propose it to the Cabinet.
“When the Cabinet approves it, we are ready to go,” he said in an interview with The Nation.
He expects the Finance Ministry will propose the change to the Cabinet this month.
Currently, the TCG provides the 18 per cent credit guarantee to regular SMEs, as between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of micro businesses get loans no higher than Bt200,000.
Wichet said providing loans worth Bt2 billion in total to innovative businesses had also been proposed to the Finance Ministry.
He said that under the programme loans not exceeding Bt3 million would be approved with the goal of signing up 700 customers.
TCG was also studying the idea of providing loans capped |at Bt3 million to SMEs that wanted to renovate to save on energy |costs.
TCG is targeting 27,000 new customers this year for a 106,000 total and guaranteeing new loans worth Bt80 billion.
The lender has outstanding credit guarantees worth Bt280 billion and non-performing credit worth Bt6 billion, or 2.1 per cent of its total outstanding credit guarantees.
