“ACMA is pleased that President Obama is committed to putting new initiatives in place to improve the availability of credit for small businesses," says ACMA President Monty Felix. "The plan announced would allow eligible community banks and other financial institutions to receive new capital at a lower dividend rate, enabling them to increase their lending to and support of local businesses."

"This means a lot to the composites industry where the majority of manufacturers are small businesses that have been hard hit during the current economic recession,” he explains.

“The President’s proposal to increase the size of Small Business Administration (SBA) loans will allow small composites manufacturers to expand their businesses while retaining or creating jobs," Felix continues. "Raising the loan size cap on 7(a) loans and 504 project loans will go a long way to ensuring these small businesses can expand as well as survive. By increasing the size of SBA microloans, the President’s plan would encourage the development of many innovative new composites businesses.”

Felix, CEO of Alaglass Pools, St. Matthews, South Carolina, recently met with Commerce Secretary Locke to urge the Administration to expand SBA lending to distressed companies. ACMA has also advocated measures such as these in a series of recent meetings with officials from the US Department of the Treasury, Department of Commerce and the White House.

“ACMA joins the Administration in urging that Congress pass legislation reforming the SBA loan programme to expand access to capital for small businesses,” Felix concludes.