Assessment of credit accessibility to construction SMEs in the South African construction industry using binary logistic regression

Abstract: Unavailability of credit, especially trade credit, is one of the primary reasons for high failure rate of construction SMEs. This paper empirically investigates the determinants of trade credit to construction small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. The data were obtained through questionnaire survey from 179 small and medium contractors who were conveniently sampled in the Gauteng province. Data analysis was done using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 software. Results indicated that managerial competency, the availability of business plan, relationship with financial institutions, location of the firm, firm size, firm tax number and incorporation are significant determinants of credit accessibility in South Africa. These findings could be useful to construction SMEs in identifying and accessing trade credit from financial institutions