Supporting Small and Medium Enterprises

69. Small and medium enterprises played an important role in the process of economic restructuring. We need to think of new ways to support Hong Kong's many small and medium enterprises. In a report I received in June this year, the Small and Medium Enterprises Committee proposed a series of measures to assist SMEs. The thrust of their proposal is to set up four funds amounting to $1.3 billion to help boost training, open up markets, implement projects and programmes to lift competitiveness, and to purchase business equipment and appliances with credit guarantees from the Government.

70. In view of the present difficulties faced by SMEs, I have decided to inject an additional $500 million into the Business Installations and Equipment Loan Guarantee Scheme which the Committee proposes to establish. This will raise from $1 million to $2 million the maximum loan amount for each enterprise. In addition, I will inject a further $100 million into the SME Export Marketing Fund to provide support to more enterprises. With this injection, the total amount in the Fund will be $300 million.

71. It will bring the Government's total commitment to the four funds to $1.9 billion, benefiting more than 100 000 enterprises. We will also implement about 30 new proposals put forward by the Committee to actively support SMEs to raise their competitiveness.