Exim Thailand links with partners to help finance SMEs

Pisit Serewiwattana, president of Exim Bank, said that under this collaboration, SME exporters using “Exim Instant Credit Super Value”, which is a working capital credit line of up to Bt2 million, secured only by a letter of guarantee from TCG and requiring no collateral assets, are entitled to an interest reduction of 0.5 percentage point in the first year to only 4.5 per cent and a complimentary coupon for product standard upgrade worth Bt5,000 per exporter. 
This will allow exporters seeking to raise their product quality standards to gain access to the Pracharat laboratory service, which is of international standard with laboratory testing facilities certified by the European Union Reference Laboratory. 
Thai products acquiring such certification will be better received in markets overseas. 
These products include fruits and vegetables, raw foods, processed foods, cosmetics, bottled water, beverages in sealed containers, semi-instant foods, and tea and coffee drinks, in which impurities and residues have frequently been detected. 
In some cases, such products were sold in unhygienic packages. 
In international trade competition, Thai SME exporters need to be proactive, relying on market studies, product quality development to reach international standards, new market penetration and financial readiness. 
They will also need to be well prepared to cope with trade and investment risks as well as currency fluctuation. 
Exim Bank and is business partners, TCG and Central Lab Thai, are ready to assist Thai SME exporters to ensure that they are fully equipped to compete well globally. 
This is in line with the government’s policy to support the country’s target industries (S-curve) in their trade and investment expansion endeavours to successfully serve consumer markets overseas in the long term, he added.