The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to expand its loan guarantee programme for small- and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) to include loans made by finance and trust companies, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported without citing sources.
Currently only loans made by banks qualify. But to make it easier for smaller firms to raise funds, METI plans to expand the coverage this summer.
Analysts say it is such government programmes that lie behind the big drop in corporate bankruptcies in recent years.
The number of Japanese companies that collapsed in 2004 dropped 16.8% to 13,837, dropping below 14,000 for the first time in a decade, according to Teikoku Databank Ltd, a quasi-private credit research firm.
And debts left unpaid fell 32.6% to 7.93 trillion yen, dropping below 10 trillion yen for the first time in eight years.
