The Small Medium-Sized Enterprise's Characteristic in Batam Free Trade Zone that Able to Acquire Debt

The objective of this research is to identify Small Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Characteristics in Batam Free Trade Zone that have the ability to acquire debt. Sampling method used in this research is purposive sampling method. 79 selected samples were taken from SME that located in Batam during 2008-2009. The methods used for analysis were comparison analysis and logistic regression model. The result of this research indicates that firm size, firm growth, firm location, foreign shareholder involvement, type of industry, export activities, and educational background of top manager at SME in Batam have significant correlations to the SME's ability to acquire a debt. The ability to acquire debt by SME in Batam is positively related to location, export activities and manager education but negatively related to size, growth, foreign shareholder and type of industry. The firm age and development strategy seems to have no significant impact on the SME's ability to acquire debt. The groups which are SME's using debt and not using debt can be distinguished by Mean Difference Analysis for independent samples. Based on the analysis, we concluded that firm location, export activities, background educational, foreign shareholder and firm size were the differentiating factors between two groups.