VietNamNet Bridge – Twenty-three per cent of privately held businesses expect finance to be more accessible this year, according to a report recently released by Grant Thornton International.

Three percent said it would be "much more accessible." No change was seen by 8 per cent while the remaining 46 per cent thought finance would be less accessible - including 5 per cent who thought it would be "much less" accessible - putting Viet Nam in the eighth place out of 36 economies surveyed.

The research, to compare the expectations of PHBs against how supportive they feel their lenders are in the current climate, polled over 7,200 businesses.

Globally, while 61 percent of privately held businesses (PHBs) expect finance to be less or much less accessible, a surprising 69 per cent feel their lender is currently being supportive or very supportive, even in such difficult times, according to the report.

PHBs in countries like Australia, India, and Poland appear most confident, believing their lenders are currently more supportive and their access to finance better than the global average.

Businesses in several of the most mature economies, such as the US, the UK, Japan, and New Zealand, feel they have the support of their lenders but are significantly less confident about the likelihood of their actually providing finance.

The worst appear to be in Belgium, Thailand, France and Argentina, where PHBs not only fear that finance would be less accessible than the global average, but also feel they have the least supportive lenders in the world.

"These results give a fascinating insight into how lenders are viewed by PHBs in different parts of the world at this time of financial crisis," said Kenneth Atkinson, managing director of Grant Thornton Viet Nam.

"With a few exceptions, it is PHBs in economies mat are relative newcomers to globalisation who feel their lenders are being unsupportive, probably because they lack experience of international recessions.

"The question is whether the PHBs who do feel their lenders are currently supporting them will persuade those lenders to actually deliver the cash when it is needed," Atkinson said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News