Taipei Times
Date: Apr 07, 2020
By: Chen Cheng-hui / Staff reporter

The level of corporate and household debt in Taiwan remains manageable, despite an income shock amid the COVID-19 pandemic and mounting stress in global financial markets, DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) said in a report last week.

The Singapore-based bank published its report as part of its latest assessment of the potential credit risks in Taiwan and South Korea.

The analysis said that South Korea’s corporate and household sectors, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the service industry, are highly leveraged and should be particularly vulnerable.

In Taiwan, the corporate debt situation is not particularly worrisome, DBS said, adding that banks’ loans to the corporate sector increased 4.8 percent year-on-year last year, slowing from an increase of 5.6 percent in 2018, while SME loans also grew at a slower pace of 5.6 percent last year, compared with a rise of 6.4 percent the previous year.    [FULL  STORY]