Avaliação de programas especiais de crédito para as micro, pequenas e médias empresas

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises’ (MSMEs) conditions of access to credit under Brazil’s main earmarked credit programs: National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) financings, the Constitutional Financing Funds of the North, Northeast and Center-West regions (FNO, FNE, FCO), and the Employment and Income Generation Program (Proger). These programs were originally assessed by the author in a research report drawn up for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac), and this study updates information and adds new analyses. In 2004, the total value of credit granted to firms of all sizes under the three credit programs analyzed reached US$ 16.783 million (or 2,3% of GDP), of which US$ 4.613 million were lent to MSMEs, or 27.5 % of all financings. Programs using earmarked funds constitute the only source of financings for medium and long-term investment, as Brazil does not have a private credit market of this kind. Earmarked credit programs’ supply of working capital loans has also grown in recent years, and this has increased MSMEs’ access to this kind of loan paying below non-earmarked credit market interest rates. However, as earmarked credit is funded on fiscal resources and on the Workers’ Assistance Fund (FAT), it has a high social cost due to the increased production costs faced by all firms that pay taxes on revenues, production and their workforce wages, which go towards funding these programs. Given this cost, financings using earmarked credit must be continuously reassessed in order to check whether or not they are achieving their original purpose of increasing investments and production, and creating new jobs.