MACAO, Feb. 10 -- Macao's newly approved small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) credit decreased in the second half of last year, according to statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macao on Wednesday.

In the second half of 2020, new SME credit limit approved by Macao banks totaled 8.2 billion patacas, down 46.5 percent from the first half of 2020, or 4.2 percent from the same period of 2019.

At the end of 2020, the outstanding balance of SME loans decreased 1.7 percent from the end of June 2020, but rose 1.3 percent from a year earlier to 87.3 billion patacas.

Meanwhile, the outstanding balance of delinquent SME loans grew 113.1 percent from six months ago, or 193.8 percent from the preceding year to 486.5 million patacas. (1 pataca equals 0.1252 U.S. dollar) Enditem