Keywords: United States; Financial crisis; Small and medium-sized enterprises; Challenge; chance
In September 2008, a large-scale financial crisis triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis broke out in the United States, which quickly evolved into an economic crisis and spread all over the world. The financial market, stock market and real economy of all countries in the world have been affected to varying degrees. Although China's financial market has not been strongly impacted, both the stock market and the real economy have been affected, especially bringing severe challenges to the survival and development of small and medium-sized enterprises in China. How small and medium-sized enterprises find opportunities in the crisis and create better development opportunities for themselves will be the key to the survival of small and medium-sized enterprises in China.
First, the challenges brought by the international financial crisis to small and medium-sized enterprises in China
(A) the export trade volume of export processing enterprises has been seriously affected.
The impact of the financial crisis on China's export processing enterprises is quite extensive and increasing. Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, it has affected about 80% of SMEs' exports. Before August 2008, the export volume of enterprises exported to the United States, Europe and other countries only showed a downward trend. By September, June, 65438+ 10, enterprises in exporting countries, South Korea and other countries all experienced a decline in export orders, the customer capital chain was broken, and even some enterprises had no orders. Labor-intensive industries are the hardest hit. Such as metallurgy, building materials, furniture, clothing and other industries. Taking Wenzhou as an example, foreign trade orders plummeted, with an average reduction of about 30%. Breach of contract abroad is serious, and the default rate is about10%; The phenomenon of "evasion" and "breach of contract" of foreign investors is serious, and many corporate loans cannot be recovered, and about 20 billion loans are in arrears. All these make enterprises afraid to accept foreign orders easily.
The financial crisis makes it difficult for enterprises to predict the cost of imported materials.
The international financial crisis has reduced the amount of funds in the American financial market, and the tight monetary policy in the United States has led to a decrease in the supply of dollars in circulation and a gradual recovery in the value of dollars. The exchange rate of RMB against the US dollar has gradually stabilized from the continuous appreciation, and there is a slight downward trend. The fluctuation of the exchange rate of the US dollar leads to the sharp fluctuation of commodity prices denominated in the US dollar. For example, the international crude oil price has fallen sharply for the first time in recent years, and the month-on-month decline in the third quarter of 2008 is close to 20%, which is definitely not good news for imported enterprises, and the future trend of RMB is also difficult to predict. If the RMB continues to depreciate, it will lead to a substantial increase in the cost of imported materials and unpredictable corporate profits. However, judging from the current economic situation in the United States, it is unlikely that the dollar will continue to appreciate. Because the United States wants to stimulate economic growth, the depreciation of the dollar is its powerful weapon. It is difficult to predict when the US dollar exchange rate will reverse in the future. This makes it difficult for enterprises processing imported materials to determine the price of export orders, so for the sake of caution, some export orders are not easy to accept.
(C) The financial crisis has reduced the domestic market demand of SMEs.
Affected by the international financial crisis, China's financial and securities markets have also been impacted to varying degrees. As China's financial market has not been fully liberalized, the impact is not obvious. However, the securities market has been strongly impacted. Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, there has been a persistent bear market in the securities market. The stock price dropped from 6000 points to 1800 points, and the stock value shrank by more than two-thirds. The rapid depreciation of investors' wealth has caused investors to panic and dare not invest or consume easily. Although most non-investors have not been directly impacted by the financial crisis, they are trying their best to reduce expenses and consumption in order to prevent problems before they happen. This makes the domestic market demand of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are mainly domestic sales, greatly reduce, and the survival of small and medium-sized enterprises becomes more difficult under the background of constant or even increasing costs. As a result, small and medium-sized enterprises have laid off employees and reduced expenses to alleviate their difficulties, and even some enterprises can only stop production and go bankrupt.
The financial crisis makes it more difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to raise funds.
Financing difficulty has always been a bottleneck that puzzles the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. For a long time, the state has also issued a large number of policies to solve this problem. However, the financing problem of small and medium-sized enterprises has not been fundamentally solved. The financial crisis has made this problem more prominent. Li, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said that SMEs were most affected by the financial crisis, and the most obvious problem was the shortage of funds. Under the turbulent international financial situation, the operating risk and credit risk level of small and medium-sized enterprises will rise. In order to reduce their own risks, the major commercial banks in China will be more reluctant to lend, and the loans will be limited to a few technologically advanced small and medium-sized enterprises, and the enterprises that accept loans are required to have high credit, strong anti-risk ability, good management and transparent financial status. Therefore, loans are still limited to a few large enterprises, and small and medium-sized family-owned enterprises are still excluded. In the context of rising material costs, reduced export orders or reduced domestic market demand, these enterprises are facing a break in the capital chain, which is undoubtedly worse. Many enterprises have no choice but to shut down or close down.
Second, the opportunities of small and medium-sized enterprises in China under the international financial crisis
Challenges and opportunities always coexist. The international financial crisis has not only brought severe challenges to China's small and medium-sized enterprises, but also brought more opportunities for development and transformation.
(A) favorable national financing policy opportunities
Small and medium-sized enterprises need blood transfusion emergency funds when the financial storm strikes. To this end, governments at all levels, from the central to the local, acted urgently, and the People's Bank of China issued emergency guidance and put forward a number of policies that are beneficial to the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, support financial institutions to issue M&A loans to meet the reasonable M&A financing needs of small and medium-sized enterprises in time. Encourage and promote financial institutions to steadily increase the proportion of loans to small and medium-sized enterprises. Banking financial institutions are encouraged to increase credit and diversified financing support for small and medium-sized enterprises that have good fundamentals and credit records, are competitive, have a market, and have orders but temporarily encounter operational or financial difficulties. These preferential financing policies provide strong financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises to adjust their industrial structure and upgrade their industries under the financial crisis. At the same time, local governments at all levels have taken action and introduced specific financing policies. For example, the Hunan Provincial People's Government issued an opinion to support the financing policy of small and medium-sized enterprises, requiring commercial banks to increase credit support for small and medium-sized enterprises and shorten the time for loan approval. The preferential financing policies issued by governments at all levels have greatly alleviated the financing difficulties of enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises should seize this favorable opportunity, raise enough funds, adjust industrial structure in time, upgrade products, and realize the transfer of industrial structure in domestic or international markets.
(b) Opportunities for SMEs to upgrade their industries and adjust their industrial structure in a timely manner.
Due to the outbreak of the financial crisis, the exchange rate of the US dollar depreciated slightly, but it did not bring more profit space to enterprises, and the export orders of small and medium-sized enterprises began to decline. In order to promote exports, the state has greatly increased the export tax rebate rate for major technical equipment, some IT products and other high-tech products and products processed with agricultural products as raw materials. At the same time, however, the Ministry of Finance cancelled or reduced the export tax rebate rate for some non-metallic mineral products, coal, steel and other products. The change of the national export tax rebate policy fully shows that the country has begun to restrict the export of resource products that are in short supply at home and have low added value. Non-ferrous metal industrial enterprises and other primary product processing enterprises should actively develop high-tech export products, upgrade products, expand exports, strive to include independently developed high-tech products in the catalogue of high-tech products encouraged by the state, and enjoy preferential export tax rebate policies. In addition to product upgrading, SMEs should also actively adjust their industrial structure. Properly carry out diversified operations to open up a broader living space for enterprises.
(c) Opportunities for redistribution and transfer of global industrial structure
The international financial crisis has made some enterprises in western developed countries, especially in Europe and the United States, struggling to support because of falling domestic and international demand, rising product costs and broken capital chain. Those who can't support it can only choose bankruptcy, and the manufacturing industry as a whole is in a recession. The financial crisis has brought historic opportunities to the global market layout of China's manufacturing industry. China's small and medium-sized enterprises should seize this favorable opportunity, make use of the government's preferential financing policy, raise enough funds, actively carry out global industrial layout, and acquire foreign R&D institutions, upstream raw material suppliers and downstream product sales enterprises at a lower cost, so as to effectively improve the technical content of products, reduce the production cost of products, raise the global market price of products, and truly enhance their share in the international market. While encouraging and supporting large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, the state should pay attention to encouraging and supporting the global expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises.
(D) Opportunities for China to expand domestic demand
The export orders of export processing enterprises are reduced or gone, but this does not mean that small and medium-sized enterprises have no way out, because China has a huge market with a population of 65.438+0.3 billion. If exports are less, they can turn to develop the domestic market. On June 9, 2008, the State Council studied and deployed measures to further expand domestic demand and promote steady and rapid economic growth. It is pointed out that it is necessary to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy, introduce more favorable measures to expand domestic demand, speed up people's livelihood projects, infrastructure, ecological environment construction and post-disaster reconstruction, improve the income level of urban and rural residents, especially low-income groups, and promote steady and rapid economic growth; And put forward a 4 trillion yuan package of construction and economic development plans. At the same time, it also introduced favorable policies for specific industries, such as reducing the deed tax of small-displacement vehicles and stimulating the production and consumption of small-displacement vehicles; Save the housing market through interest rate cuts, tax rebates and other policies; Implement home appliances to the countryside. All these favorable policies and measures will be an opportunity for the vigorous development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises should seize the opportunity, actively develop and expand the domestic market, and appropriately adjust the industrial structure.
Small and medium-sized enterprises in the shadow of the international financial crisis, as long as they are good at using their wisdom and seize various favorable opportunities, will eventually be able to resolve the challenges brought about by the international financial crisis.