Trade credit insurance provider Atradius’s annual survey of the Asia-Pacific region showed that the region continues to be the growth engine of the world economy. For the region as a whole, economic growth this year is estimated at 4.8%, more or less the same as last year (4.7%). Most countries in the region are export-oriented, and this is largely reflected in the strong propensity towards offering credit terms to foreign B2B customers observed in Hong Kong and Singapore. Survey respondents in these countries reported that half of their sales to B2B customers abroad are made on credit terms.

Key results from the survey of 1670 respondents showed that:

• proportion of sales made on credit is increasing 50% for domestic and 43.8% for international
• average credit terms: 30 days
• An average of 27.5% and 28.4% of the total value of the invoices issued by survey respondents in Asia-Pacific to their domestic and foreign B2B customers respectively are unpaid at the due date (overall averages for the Americas: 27.0% domestic and 29.5% foreign. Europe: 30.0% domestic and 27.3% foreign). Just over 68% of the late payments of survey respondents were received 1 to 30 days late; around 27% between 31 and 90 days late and around 5% over 90 days late.
• Of the countries surveyed in Asia-Pacific, India has the largest proportion of uncollectable domestic and foreign B2B receivables
• the average DSO recorded in Asia-Pacific was 56 days (up from 48 days in 2012)
• most of the respondents in Asia-Pacific consider maintaining adequate cash flow to be the biggest challenge to the profitability of their business this year:

Source & Copyright©2013 -  Astradius Payment Practices Barometer - November 2013

Payment Practices Barometer is available at www.atradius.com.