The Government is considering injecting liquidity into the banking system in the form of bank deposits to implement its $2.5 billion credit guarantee scheme for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Director-general of industry, Francis Ho Suen-wai, discussed issues relating to the scheme with local banks at the Hong Kong Association of Banks' weekly meeting.
He said the implementation details of the scheme would be finalised soon and the scheme would be open for applications from August.
'The Government has a lot of its funds deposited in banks in Hong Kong. Mobilising these funds could be one of the ways to implement the scheme,' he said.
At the moment, the Government had not 'formally' invited individual banks to participate in the scheme, Mr Ho said.
His comment followed a pledge by Secretary for Trade and Industry Brian Chau Tak-hay on Monday that the Government would boost its commitment to ease the credit crunch by directly injecting money into the system rather than just guaranteeing 50 per cent of the loans approved under the scheme.