{"id":16052,"date":"2021-07-05T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-05T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/2021\/07\/05\/coface-asia-corporate-payment-survey-2021-corporate-payment-delay-trend-stabilized-companies-see-brighter-outlook-but-risks-and-uncertainty-remain\/"},"modified":"2021-07-05T03:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-05T03:00:00","slug":"coface-asia-corporate-payment-survey-2021-corporate-payment-delay-trend-stabilized-companies-see-brighter-outlook-but-risks-and-uncertainty-remain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/2021\/07\/05\/coface-asia-corporate-payment-survey-2021-corporate-payment-delay-trend-stabilized-companies-see-brighter-outlook-but-risks-and-uncertainty-remain\/","title":{"rendered":"Coface Asia Corporate Payment Survey 2021: Corporate payment delay trend stabilized; companies see brighter outlook, but risks and uncertainty remain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\"><!--<a class=\"format-txt\" href=\"{baseURL}\/View\/{release.id}?_download=1\">View this article in .txt format<\/a>--><\/p>\n<p>HONG KONG SAR &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.media-outreach.com\/\"> Media OutReach<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; 5 July 2021 &#8211; <b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.coface.com\"> Coface<\/a>&#8216;s&#13;<br \/>\n2021 Asia Corporate Payment Survey, conducted between October 2020 and March&#13;<br \/>\n2021, provides insights into the evolution of payment behaviour and credit&#13;<br \/>\nmanagement practices of over 2,500 companies across the Asia Pacific region&#13;<br \/>\nduring a pandemic year. Respondents came from nine markets (Australia, China,&#13;<br \/>\nHong Kong SAR, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan) and 13&#13;<br \/>\nsectors located in the Asia-Pacific region. <\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p><i> \u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<h3><b> No deterioration&#13;<br \/>\nof payment delays despite the impact of COVID <\/b><\/h3>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>65%&#13;<br \/>\nof respondents experienced payment delays in 2020, similar to 2019. <b>Despite a weakened economic environment, the survey conducted by Coface shows that payment delays improved in 2020,<\/b>\u00a0with&#13;<br \/>\nthe average duration of overdue payments falling to a five-year low, thanks to&#13;<br \/>\nstrong government policy responses. Shorter payment delays were seen across six&#13;<br \/>\nof the nine surveyed economies and 10 out of 13 sectors. This trend was&#13;<br \/>\npartially due to robust and coordinated government policy responses to soften&#13;<br \/>\nthe impact of the pandemic on business activity, as well as the move by&#13;<br \/>\ncompanies towards tightening credit management and strengthening cash-flow&#13;<br \/>\nresiliency. This tighter credit policy was reflected by the average duration of&#13;<br \/>\npayment delays in Asia Pacific, which fell to 79 days in 2020, down from 85 in&#13;<br \/>\n2019, and its shortest length since 2015.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p> \u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>However,&#13;<br \/>\nthere was a build-up of credit risks in Australia and Hong Kong, with both&#13;<br \/>\nreporting a strong increase in late payments, and more crucially, a sharp rise&#13;<br \/>\nin ultra-long payment delays (ULPDs, over 180 days) amounting to over 2% of&#13;<br \/>\nannual turnover. According to Coface&#8217;s experience, 80% of ultra-long payment&#13;<br \/>\ndelays (ULPDs, over 180 days) are never paid. Meanwhile, the <b>retail, construction, <\/b>and<b> transport<\/b> sectors \u2013 among the worst&#13;<br \/>\nhit by the pandemic \u2013  \u00a0 saw the largest&#13;<br \/>\nincreases in ULPDs over 2% of their annual turnover, indicating an <b>increase in cash flow risk.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p> \u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<h3><b> Economic&#13;<br \/>\nimprovement in 2021: Companies in Australia and the automotive industry are&#13;<br \/>\nmost optimistic  <\/b><\/h3>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">2020&#13;<br \/>\nwas characterised by the shock of Covid-19 on both economies and society.&#13;<br \/>\nUnlike previous recessions, which tended to be gradual and shallower, the&#13;<br \/>\npandemic recession was rapid and deep due to the unique elements of the&#13;<br \/>\ncoronavirus pandemic. Companies were surveyed about the impact of Covid-19 on&#13;<br \/>\ntheir business operations. In Japan and Taiwan, a reduction in demand was the&#13;<br \/>\ntop reason impacting companies&#8217; sales and cash-flows, whereas in China, higher&#13;<br \/>\nmaterial prices were the most-cited reason. In India, where many companies rely&#13;<br \/>\non migrant workers, the top impact cited was insufficient workforces due to&#13;<br \/>\nlockdown measures disrupting business operations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\"><img src=\"https:\/\/release.media-outreach.com\/release.php\/Images\/Thumb\/500x0\/160643\/Economic-Growth-EN.jpg#image-160643\" width=\"500\"\/><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>With&#13;<br \/>\nrobust and coordinated policy responses, an accelerated shift towards&#13;<br \/>\ndigitalisation, and countries reopening parts of their economy after strict&#13;<br \/>\nlockdown measures, the recovery was quick but uneven. <b>Companies nevertheless expect that economic growth will improve in&#13;<br \/>\n2021. Australian firms were the most optimistic, with 80% of respondents&#13;<br \/>\nanticipating higher growth<\/b>, followed by India (76%), China (73%), Malaysia&#13;<br \/>\n(73%) and Taiwan (71%). In contrast, Japan was the only country where less than&#13;<br \/>\ntwo-thirds of respondents (61%) expect an improvement in economic growth during&#13;<br \/>\n2021.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p> \u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>By&#13;<br \/>\nsectors, <b>automotive is the most&#13;<br \/>\nconfident regarding year-ahead sales<\/b>, with 66% of respondents expecting an&#13;<br \/>\nimprovement. This was followed by energy (64%), metals (64%), paper (63%) and&#13;<br \/>\npharmaceutical (61%). The highest proportion of companies anticipating an&#13;<br \/>\nimprovement in cash flows over the next 12 months were found in automotive,&#13;<br \/>\nagri-food, and pharmaceutical at 55% each, followed by metals (53%), paper&#13;<br \/>\n(52%), and chemicals (51%).<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p> \u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<h3><b> Information &amp;&#13;<br \/>\ncommunications equipment export drives growth in Asia but risks remain<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>With&#13;<br \/>\nthe ongoing move towards &#8220;normal&#8221; business conditions, we expect the region to experience&#13;<br \/>\npositive growth after contracting in 2020. <b>The&#13;<br \/>\npace of expansion will be the fastest in India (+9.0%), which saw the sharpest&#13;<br \/>\ncontraction among the nine surveyed economies during 2020<\/b>. This is followed&#13;<br \/>\nby China (+7.5%), Singapore (+6.3%), Taiwan (+5.6%), Australia (5.0%), Hong&#13;<br \/>\nKong (+4.8%), Malaysia (+4.6%), Japan (+2.7%) and Thailand (+2.2%). <b>External demand has been a key driver of&#13;<br \/>\nthe recovery for Asia, as a global shift towards remote working and remote&#13;<br \/>\nlearning drove a global need for information and communications (ICT) equipment<\/b>.&#13;\n<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p><b> This greatly benefited several&#13;<br \/>\neconomies in the region that are key exporters of ICT products <\/b> ,&#13;<br \/>\nsuch as China (+40% YTD), Taiwan (21% YTD), Malaysia (28% YTD) and Singapore&#13;<br \/>\n(9% YTD). An increase in capital investment also boosted sales of electronic&#13;<br \/>\nand electrical machinery. However, the recovery in private consumption was much&#13;<br \/>\nmore gradual, and lagged behind growth in manufacturing and exports as labour&#13;<br \/>\nmarket improvements remained weak and many parts of the APAC region experienced&#13;<br \/>\nrenewed mobility restrictions and lockdowns. Curbs on international travel&#13;<br \/>\nremained largely in place, which prevented the tourism sector from mounting a&#13;<br \/>\nrecovery. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p> \u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p><i> &#8220;Our baseline scenario assumes that&#13;<br \/>\nthere will be no new wave of COVID-19 infections in the second half of 2021,&#13;<br \/>\nand that a ramp-up of vaccination improves the resiliency of the recovery. The&#13;<br \/>\ncaveat is that the current environment remains difficult to predict. Moreover,&#13;<br \/>\nthere are rising risks to the recovery, such as the global semiconductor&#13;<br \/>\nshortage, which could limit Asian export growth, and rising commodity prices,&#13;<br \/>\nwhich could compress corporate margins and weigh on demand,&#8221; explained <\/i>&#13;<br \/>\n<b>Bernard Aw, Coface&#8217;s Asia-Pacific&#13;<br \/>\nEconomist. <\/b><\/p>\n<p>The complete report is available\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/release-manager.media-outreach.com\/i\/160797\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.media-outreach.com\/news\/2021-07-05\/84560\/coface-asia-corporate-payment-survey-2021-corporate-payment-delay-trend-stabilized-companies-see-brighter-outlook-but-risks-and-uncertainty-remain\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HONG KONG SAR &#8211; Media OutReach\u00a0&#8211; 5 July 2021 &#8211; Coface&#8216;s&#13; 2021 Asia Corporate Payment Survey, conducted between October 2020 and March&#13; 2021, provides insights into the evolution of payment behaviour and credit&#13; management practices of over 2,500 companies across the Asia Pacific region&#13; during a pandemic year. Respondents came from nine markets (Australia, China,&#13; &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}