SB Corp. reports lending to SMEs reached P170 billion
Posted on October 11th, 2009
Small Business Corp. (SB Corp.), the lead convenor for small and medium enterprises (SME) Unified Lending Opportunities for National Growth (Sulong), said that the lending to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) has reached P170.3 billion in the past five years through the various government agencies. The group said that they alone have extended total loans of P16.2 billion during the same period.
According to the SB Corp. report, as of June 2009, the lending program has benefitted 49,263 MSMEs, supporting about 2.5 million jobs.
SB Corp. President and Sulong finance committee chairman Benel P. Laguna, said, “There are other government and private agencies and stakeholders called participating financial institutions or PFIs, as they expand the outreach of the program since their presence in the rural areas makes it easier of SMEs to access Sulong funds.â€
The Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) has extended a total of P93 billion, while the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) has P54.7 billion in loans. Both were loan figures since 2004.
Other channels, like the Quedan Rural Credit and Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor), have released P3.3 billion; the Philippine Export and Import Credit Agency (PhilExim) accounted for P1.5 billion; the Social Security System (SSS) released P1.2 billion; and the National Livelihood Support Fund (NLSF) have loaned out P294.5 million in retail and wholesale loans to SMEs.
For its part, SB Corp. has various lending programs which were designed for specific sector, like the Rural Micro-Enterprise Promotion Program (RuMEPP) which is a seven-year rural microfinance program lending program for the country’s 19 poorest provinces with funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
By providing credit delivery matched with business development services, RuMEPP complements the government’s program for poverty alleviation.
The MSME Retail Lending program of SB Corp. on the other hand, has surpassed the half-billion peso mark. Its wholesale lending program is nearly reaching the P3-billion mark. It has more than a hundred PFIs, fifty percent of which are rural banks.
SB Corp. is also negotiating for partnership with official development assistance (ODA) agencies such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), InWent, and KfW and GTZ, which are German development-oriented financial institutions.
