WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - A new lending initiative aims to buck the recession-driven tightening of credit by making loans more readily available to small businesses.

The initiative, announced Friday by Gov. Bev Perdue at Kingz Downtown Market, would help entrepreneurs who need capital to get their ideas off the ground and current business owners who need money just to stay in business through a dry spell.

"Start-up capital is critical in small business, and it's been hard to come by these days," said Ernie Puglisi, a small-businessman who creates Web sites for medical professionals. "Establishing credit is important. A lot of times, you have to provide personal guarantees if you're a new business. It's very difficult to come by."

Perdue said she wants to increase participation for Small Business Administration loans and other federally backed loan programs by North Carolina banks, plus strengthen loan applications by small businesses.

"Recent statistics prove that small businesses account for all net job growth and so, if you remove the employment that entrepreneurial companies create, the overall growth of employment is actually negative," said Sam Funchess, the president of the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship, a small business incubator in Greensboro.

Funchess said the center sees at least 15 people per day who want to start a business.

The state will hold a series of "banker boot camps" across North Carolina to coach loan officers and community banks on how to take advantage of SBA loans, Perdue said.