This article is based on the Panel "Export Culture, Human resources, competitiveness and Administrator training in the generation of Export-oriented Companies." Carried out by doctors Miguel Gómez Martines, president of Bancoldex and Orlando Salinas Gómez, president of ASCOLFA Bogotá, within the Third Latin American Congress of Business Administration Students. Bogotá October 26, 2001
It seems that the financing of the projects by the Latin American states is not a problem of pure will as it has generally been seen. Furthermore, it is not a problem of credit financing. It is a problem of policies backed by regulations consistent with needs.
The above statement is not intended to be a defense. In fact, it is an even worse complaint than what actually happens with access to credit by so-called small and medium-sized companies (not to mention the great problem of Micro-companies).
Let's take a tour of development policy and then evaluate the competitive conditions of SMEs to end institutional problems.
The Latin American region is going through a critical moment in its commercial history. On the one hand, the paradigms of protected industrialization have been broken and, on the other, the globalized market is the new scenario where we are forced to act.
The competitiveness of companies is conditioned on their independence from the state and the market positively or negatively sanctions undertakings. However, this is not applicable to the region where the promotion of national industry cannot be abandoned due to external opinions that are deviant from reality.
Not long ago the states have resumed their initiative to promote new national companies, allocating resources for those that conform to the export rate. However, these companies present problems of financing and access to credit that deserve a more detailed study and large-scale investments in order to overcome the situation.
First of all, SMEs are perceived as high-risk entities, which is why banks prefer to divert their resources to larger organizations that can meet their obligations.
The heterogeneity of SMEs is a major problem when we try to direct credit and this makes credit studies more expensive. This automatically reduces the chances that a bank is even interested in advancing this selection process with requests for small amounts, which are those that SMEs request.
One more difficulty is in the little development of the capital market (venture capital) that is talked about so much in academia. The region shows a marked tradition of debt financing by the same companies, which is a serious problem of democratization of resources.
In a large part of the Latin American countries, even today, the aim is to cover these shortfalls in credit and resources with second-tier development organizations. This statement in itself seems contradictory. Second-tier banks do not fulfill the true function of promotion, since they go through the first-tier intermediary and this in turn seeks to maximize its profit and not provide a service to society.
In addition to the above, there are also tax problems. Instead of advancing exemptions for nascent companies, governments do not differentiate, nor provide appropriate incentives for these companies, which leads to the weakening of the productive network.
It seems that the bankers of the continent show no appreciation for the sacrifice that states have had to make to save the financial systems, their businesses. It seems that the bankers did not understand that they are not only to export capital but for what they should be, to lend money to the people; risk is not an excuse, that's your business.
Faced with this very difficult situation of lack of guarantees on the part of the company, of lack of credit on the part of the financial sector and of lack of policies applicable to our reality, it is necessary that we demand from the state and the regional banking greater transparency in the management resources to be able to access them at more reasonable costs and that we begin a dismantling of the obsolete laws that tie up resources and instead adopt laws that use the new control tools so that resources reach their destination as investment and not as loan.
In short, if the financial system prefers to continue with large companies, we must force them through quota mechanisms so that part of it reaches small companies. And if for that they must implement more modern evaluation tools that reduce costs then they must be forced to do so so that they provide a better service.
If it is about seed capital, then it is time for the business plan that is talked about so much to really be considered as an asset and who better to channel these resources than the so-called Business Incubators.
All this is possible only if serious processes of political and regulatory renewal are carried out within the legislative branch of the countries. It seems that it is necessary that young people take the voice on these issues at the continental level and that the new leaders show themselves.
