Chinese SMEs struggle with tight financing

Liao Rongna is one of Interpol's most wanted men. He does not run a drug cartel or lead a smuggling network. The Chinese billionaire owns a conglomerate with interests in automobiles, construction and logistics.

Interpol issued a red notice for Liao because he ran away from a debt of 3.2 billion yuan (522 million U.S. dollars). Liao, 58, is said to have cheated his way into billions in loans by promising investors high returns, and then failing to repay the debt. A guilty verdict for this kind of crime in China can result in the death sentence.

For Liao, a life of burning through other people's money was better than dealing with bankruptcy and the wrath of domestic law. So he chose to flee the country, a common way out for rich Chinese who borrow with the promise of high returns, but later run out of money to pay their debts.

The rising number of runaway billionaires reflects the financing difficulties facing the Chinese private sector, according to analysts.

Ma Jun, chief economist at the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China, told Xinhua the borrowing rate for Chinese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is usually around 20 percent. The interest rate an SME needs to pay often surpasses its profit margin.

In nominal terms, China's financing costs are not high compared with the country's GDP growth and industrial profit margins. The benchmark rate for one-year bank loans is only 5.6 percent.

The benchmark rate, however, is reserved for state-owned and big corporations, and SMEs usually face significant mark-ups.

Liu Gang, general manager of an auto parts company in Guangxi's Liuzhou City, said banks hike the rates for SMEs with the help of special terms and shadow banking lenders.

According to Liu, banks often request a SME borrower put half of the loans they have received back in deposits, but ask the borrower to pay interest on the total amount.

"Our financing cost is then doubled," Liu said, adding that the practice, though banned, still occurs.

Despite the high rates, most Chinese SMEs cannot actually get loans from banks. They only receive funding from shadow banking institutions, often with annual interest rates around 24 percent, said Liu Qiao, a professor of finance at the renowned Peking University.

"Using high returns to lure money from the public is like an economic opiate. Entrepreneurs are often tempted to take a dose to avoid breaking their capital chains," said Liu, the auto parts company owner."It is impossible to quit once you start borrowing like this, and the financial conditions often get worse."

Chinese decision-makers have been trying to tackle the financing difficulty that has burdened China's real economy for years.

In last week's south China tour, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Guangdong's Qianhai Webank, which has low costs compared to traditional banks and focuses on small loans to individuals and small firms.

The phrase "tackle financing difficulty" was mentioned eight times at State Council executive meetings held in 2014, showing the government's desire to ease funding conditions for SMEs.

On December 22, 2014, the People's Bank of China announced it would lower the country's benchmark lending interest rates by 0.4 percent, the largest drop since 2008.

"The real estate and stock markets are the first to enjoy the advantages when the interest rate is reduced. It is also good news for the real economy in China," Liu said.

However, authorities need to roll out more reforms to lower SMEs' borrowing costs, said Yuan Gangming, a researcher at the Institute of China and World Economy at Tsinghua University.

Yuan said the fundamental cause of SMEs' financing difficulty lies in imbalanced distribution of financial resources between large corporations and SMEs. To solve this problem, China might pull funding from some massive projects and reallocate the loans to SMEs that need them.

He urged banks to cancel unnecessary charges and simplify the loan approval process for SMEs.

Professor Liu, meanwhile, suggested that liberalization of interest rates would be an effective measure, and authorities could foster more financing channels such as Internet finance.