Jiang Xiangsong has 18 days to pay a 2 million yuan ($314,000) bank debt or his suitcase company in eastern China will go bankrupt.

He’s close to tears as he realizes his last hope, a government-backed office, won’t help.

“This is totally useless: If I had any collateral, why the hell would I come here?” he yells at an official in Wenzhou’s state-run loan service, set up to help small businesses after rising bankruptcies and suicides prompted Premier Wen Jiabao to visit in October and pledge support.

Wenzhou’s more than 400,000 businesses make everything from shoes in dusty side streets to synthetic leather in dilapidated factories, much of it financed by unregulated lenders that spread during China’s record 2009-10 credit boom.