Reliance upon domestic banking systems

Fitch Ratings' Liquidity Study on Asia-Pacific corporates points to lower levels of liquidity than their developed market peers. Attributable reasons include the lack of committed bank facilities in some countries and the general reliance upon short-term debt.

Compared with European developed market corporates that have sourced a larger percentage of their debt from the bond market, partly as a reaction to their bank systems' weaknesses, APAC financial institutions have strong health thus Fitch's APAC coporates remain 45% funded by banks (EMEA: 30%).

The culture of 'relationship banking' continues in the APAC region, where banks extend short-term funding to corporates partly based on long-standing relationships consideration.