Twenty-four banks will brief CISMEF participants on the State's latest SME financial policies and services available from financial institutions, according to Cheng Zequn, vice-chairman of Guangdong Banking Association.

As well, the association will join other organizations to launch an online portal for SME financing services this morning at the CISMEF complex.

"The online site will offer a mechanism for networking SME funding needs and banking institutions to become a financing fair that never ends," Cheng said.

"In that sense, the online platform will put an end to the history of asymmetric information between SMEs and banks."

The Guangdong branch of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) will sponsor a seminar on SME financial services tomorrow morning featuring a range of government and banking leaders.

"SME owners or managers will be able to talk with them face to face for mutual understanding about financing bottlenecks and solutions."

The efforts show the importance the CBRC gives to the annual event held exclusively for SMEs, market analysts said.

Guangdong's SMEs have raised financing worth about 1.16 trillion yuan to date , about half of their actual need of more than 2 trillion yuan, according to a recent report in Times Weekly, a local newspaper.

Only 180,000 of the over 1 million private businesses in the province had been able to borrow money from banks by the end of June 2009. More than 90 percent of self-owned and other private-sector businesses still rely on their own funds for business development.

(China Daily September 15, 2010)