HO CHI MINH CITY, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Some 100 delegates from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies and experts from international financial and economic organizations gathered here on Monday to seek measures for financially assisting small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
At the APEC SME Finance Forum "Leveraging Technologies to Scale up Supply Chain Finance" in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, the delegates centered their discussions on addressing new challenges to finance of SMEs, strengthening supply chain finance (SCF), developing electronic SCF in a digital age, and putting forth new measures to foster SCF in Vietnam and other APEC economies.
SCF, which provides short-term credit that optimizes working capital for both the buyer and the seller, is considered useful for integrating a great number of SMEs into the formal financial system.
SCF is a set of technology-based business and financing processes that link the various parties in a transaction, the buyer, seller and financing institution, to lower financing costs and improved business efficiency.
SMEs make up approximately 97 percent of businesses in the APEC region, but account for only 35 percent or less of direct exports.
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