Quantifying Financing Needs in the Belt and Road Countries and Industries

This paper tries to quantify the financing needs in the Belt and Road countries and industries by using firm-level data from 2009 to 2014. By examining financial constraints of firms in the Belt and Road countries, this study constructs a Financing Needs Index for Belt and Road countries and highlights the characteristics of financing needs across 36 countries, 80 industries and 6 years. By further incorporating information from World Bank Enterprise Surveys, this paper builds an Augmented Financing Needs Index for 56 Belt and Road countries. The findings of this paper show that countries can achieve higher economic growth by further financial liberalization, improving business climate and institutional quality to address the financing needs of their indigenous firms.