Article 44 of 2021: SME Policy Review Focus Area 3 - Access to Finance and Financial Inclusion

By Des Yaninen 

As per the 15 year 2030 PNG SME Policy, one of the major constraints that small businesses face in PNG is access to finance. The policy states that only 2.5% of them have ever received any form of financial assistance including loan support from the government. Almost all SMEs today are self-made. The government announced in 2020 that it was allocating funds to SMEs via NDB and BSP. Sadly the majority of SMEs will not be able to access any of these funds because they do not meet the requirements. In addition, bank queues are too long. It takes an SME in many parts of PNG a whole day to do banking. No new banks are being built. Service is poor. Rural parts of PNG under served. This would explain why financial inclusion is so slow. 

In this article I will reflect on section 4.2.1, page 16 to 19 of the policy which identified access to finance and financial inclusion a key challenge faced by SMEs.

https://postcourier.com.pg/sme-desk-with-des-17/