According to statistics released today (12 August) by the Monetary Authority of Macao, newly approved small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) credit decreased in the first half of 2024.  Meanwhile, the outstanding balance of SME loans dropped while the share of SME loans to major industries remained stable.

New lending approved

In the first half of 2024, new SME credit limit approved by Macao banks totalled MOP4.4 billion, down 28.8% from the second half of 2023.  The collateralised ratio, which indicates the proportion of credit limit with tangible assets pledged, dropped 12.6 percentage points from the last survey period to 46.8%.

Credit utilisation

As at end-June 2024, the outstanding balance of SME loans fell by 3.6% from end-2023 to MOP81.0 billion, attributable to the repayment of loans with large denomination. Compared to the previous survey period, outstanding SME loans to “transport, storage and communications” and “restaurants, hotels and similar activities” increased by 27.9% and 10.5% respectively whereas those to “wholesale and retail” and “construction” decreased by 8.9% and 6.2% respectively.

The utilisation rate, defined as the proportion of outstanding credit balance to the credit limit granted, fell 0.5 percentage points from six months ago to 81.2%. 

Delinquent loans

At end-June 2024, the outstanding balance of delinquent SME loans was MOP4.6 billion.  The fraction of delinquent loans to total SME loans outstanding (the delinquency ratio) was 5.7%.