This study concentrates towards the effects of government
policies in promoting SMEs’ financial prospect. A few years
after the Tom Yum Kung Crisis in 1998, Thai government has
realized that SMEs would be one of the key priorities for country economic
stimulation. However, many Thai SMEs are faced with financial problems.
In order to achieve the uptrend economic growth, Thai government has
set up policies to promote the financing of Thai SMEs. In year 2002, the
government plan in promoting SMEs (2002-2006) has been formed up.
The plan was arranged based on the synergy between the latest and the
original governments’ entrepreneurial and SMEs promotion policies.
Evaluation of progressiveness of the government financing policies is
therefore necessary for government further policy implementation. The
objective of this study is to determine how government intervention are
taken from either demand or supply side as well as to evaluate the
progressiveness of policies by assessing the following five essential factors
i.e. non-performing loan (NPL), number of SMEs that take loans and the
loan amount, amount of guarantee for loan to SMEs, number of investments
in SMEs by joint venture funds, and numbers of SMEs that are listed in
SET. It is found out that the governments’ policy efforts are from both
demand and supply side but more for the later one. Thai government
financial policy measures through promotion by related state organizations
since 1999 have been met most of the set targets. However, funds granted
were mostly from the state specific financial institutes while those from
other fund sources like joint funds or MAI were still very low percentage.