Some Problems in Operating a Loan Program for Craft and Emerging Small-Scale Non-Farm Enterprises in Jamaica

摘要

Jamaica's Small Enterprise Development Corporation, Ltd. (SEDCO) provides technical assistance and credit to the country's increasingly important craft and small-scale (non-farm) sectors. This paper examines criteria established by the World Bank for loans issued by SEDCO with its funds and some problems resulting from these criteria. It is concluded that overly narrow definitional criteria, particularly the exclusion of the service sector, may have unnecessasrily limited the number of borrowers and that it may be difficult, if not impossible, at existing interest rates to cover the costs of evaluating the loan applications of very small enterprises.