Brussels, 27/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are continuing to see improvement in access to bank loans, though the improvement is moderate, according to a report published on Wednesday 27 April by the European Central Bank. Between September 2010 and March 2011, “survey results show that access to external financing sources, and in particular bank loans, continued to improve, albeit moderately. On balance, firms' opinion abut the availability of bank loans improved by 3 percentage points”, the report says. However, access to financing remains the main difficulty encountered by 16% of small businesses, while 11% of SMEs say that they have been refused a loan. These figures remain unchanged from the last report. (M.B./transl.rt)