Romania's Govt. ready to subsidise interest for EUR 3.1 bln loans to SMEs

Romania’s Government will provide guarantees for investment and working capital loans extended by banks to microenterprises, small and medium sized enterprises, and will subsidise the related interest plus other fees.

The budget of the program, which includes the interest, fees and insurance fees related to the loans, is estimated at RON 781 mln (EUR 161 mln), Economica.net reported.

The program envisages a total volume of bank loans of EUR 3.1 billion to be contracted by 40,000 SMEs and microenterprises. The size of the loans will be calculated on a case by case base, depending on the financial indicators of the recipient, such as its past turnover, the payroll and the value of works contracted to third parties.

However, the loans for investments will not exceed RON 10 mln (EUR 2 mln) and those for working capital - RON 5 mln (RON 1 mln), with an overall exposure of RON 10 mln per recipient.

The maturity of the investment loans will be six years, while working capital loans will be available for a maturity of three years, which can be extended, at request, for another three years.

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