Thema des Promotionsvorhabens
How do characteristics of new SMEs and managers impact on access to debt finance: A case study in the North of Vietnam

Themenbeschreibung
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) make a potential contribution socially and economically by creating job, revenue, and innovation, as well as a by being catalyst for urban and rural area's growth. In Vietnam, SMEs generate approximately 40 percent of annual GDP. Additionally, more than a half of all employed Vietnamese citizens work in SMEs. Creating new SMEs is seen as a good solution to deal with development issues such as poverty, and unemployment. However, their failure rate is very high. One of the reasons for the failure of new SMEs is a lack of capital.
There are two external financial sources for new SMEs are equity and debt. In Vietnam, external equity in form of stock exchange is not available for new SMEs, because they usually do not meet the entry requirements of stock exchange. Additionally, venture capitalists often invest in firms at the middle or later stages. So, new SMEs (existing less than forty two months) are depending on bank loans and informal credits (from friends, relatives) for their early stage financing. Unfortunately, SMEs are generally considered riskier than large firms in accessing to bank loans. There are many barriers for SMEs' access to bank loans, such as lack of collaterals, banks' unwillingness to lend to SMEs, and high interest rates. In Vietnam, according to Nguyen and Luu (2013) 75% SMEs would like to seek bank loans, but only 30% of them succeeded.
The aim of the dissertation is to investigate the factors influencing new SMEs' access to debt finance and to suggest solutions for SME's managers, policy-makers in order to facilitate new SMEs' access to debt finance in Vietnam.

Promotionszeitraum
2014–2018