Improving the SMEs Access to Trade Finance DRAFT
in the OIC Member States
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A European Union study completed in 2010, “Internationalization of European SMEs” suggests
some findings that may apply to some degree, to SMEs in OIC-Member States, given that some
of the commercial experiences of SMEs appear to be fairly consistent across geographies:
In addition to the numbers presenting the state of internationalisation, the study presents fact
based evidence of the need to support greater internationalisation which has political
consequences:
 International SMEs create more jobs: Internationally active SMEs report an
employment growth of 7% versus only 1% for SMEs without any international
activities.
 International SMEs are more innovative: 26% of internationally active SMEs
introduced products or services that were new for their sector in their country; for
other SMEs this is only 8%.
 Public support goes largely un-noticed: Only 16% of SMEs are aware of public
support programmes for internationalisation and only a small number of SMEs use
public support.
 European SMEs are more internationally active than US and Japanese SMEs. Overall,
European firms are more active than their counterparts in Japan or the US. Even if
only extra EU exports are considered they still perform better.
 Most often SMEs start international activities by importing. SMEs that both import
and export started with import twice as often (39%) than with exports (18%).
Source: “Internationalization of EU SMEs”, 2010
2.7. IFI’s and Export Credit Agencies in Support of SMEs
While SMEs are demonstrably under-served by bankers, the focus of public sector export
credit agencies and of IFIs and multilaterals is very much on the SME segment. In some
jurisdictions, large companies account for the majority of trade flows by value, while SMEs
might represent significant transaction volumes, and their servicing is often linked directly to
political imperatives mandated by senior public sector leaders.
IFC, for example, proposes a comprehensive proposition around trade finance, with the explicit
strategic objective of facilitating SME access to finance, just as the Geneva-based International
Trade Centre also does. Every major public sector ECA explicitly incorporates objectives
around SME support at the core of their mandate, and it has been particularly evident since the
peak of the global crisis, that these avenues of support and access are critically important to
SME success.