Privately held businesses more confident about access to finance in 2010 (Armenian)
18 February 2010
More evidence
that the global credit crunch is easing comes from the latest Grant
Thornton International Business Report (IBR) which reveals that
privately held businesses (PHBs) around the world are increasingly
confident that access to finance will be easier in 2010. 35% of
businesses said they thought access to finance would be 'more' or 'much
more accessible' in 2010 compared with only 14% who were similarly
positive 12 months ago.
Businesses were also asked how supportive they believed their lenders
to be. 69% feel their lender is currently being 'supportive' or 'very
supportive' towards their business - unchanged from 2009. However, huge
global differences appear when lender support is compared to
accessibility of finance suggesting that business success in 2010 may
be something of a global lottery, depending on where a business is
based (Fig.1).
The picture varies considerably depending on where a business is based. Four scenarios emerge.
The largest number of economies still sit in the bottom left quadrant
with the lowest expectations about access to finance and with a
perception that their lenders are the least supportive in the world.
Many, like France, Greece, Ireland, Russia and Thailand are amongst the
most generally pessimistic of the 36 economies surveyed this year.
Perhaps more surprising is the presence of mainland China where
businesses, despite being the 12th most optimistic in the 2010 IBR
optimism/pessimism index, still fall below the global average in terms
of their expectations for access to finance in 2010.
At the other end of the scale, the top right quadrant shows economies
where businesses expect finance to be more accessible than the global
average and who believe they enjoy above average support from their
lenders. Chile, India and the Philippines are the most confident, but a
number of major economies have also moved into this quadrant since 2009
- including the US, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
In the top left quadrant, Japan, Poland, Malaysia and Spain believe
their prospects for raising finance are low despite having supportive
lenders and it is no coincidence that the IMF's official GDP growth
forecasts for all these countries are below 3%, the global average for
2010.
Businesses from many countries in the bottom right quadrant (such as
Armenia, Brazil, Finland and Turkey) have historically taken this
position so despite their continuing belief that their lenders are
unsupportive, they are without exception more optimistic that access to
finance will significantly improve in 2010.
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Gurgen Hakobyan, Partner
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