October 13 (SeeNews) - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) launched on Thursday the SME Growth Market Project with the aim of opening the financial market to small and medium businesses, the Zagreb bourse said.
The project is supported by TaiwanBusiness technical cooperation fund, the bourse said in a filing.
The aim of the project is to increase access of local small and medium-sized enterprises to local capital markets financing by designing a regional SME financing platform in compliance with the EU’s Capital Market Union action plan, the ZSE noted.
“In the European Union countries, nearly 99% of all enterprises are SMEs. Especially in emerging economies, SMEs are the driving force behind economic growth. However, SMEs face more severe credit conditions than larger companies, and still face limited access to capital market financing”, said Ivana Gazic, president of the ZSE management board.
In a separate press release, the EBRD said that SMEs are vital for the Croatian economy, yet access to finance remains a challenge.
"In this situation capital markets can provide a viable alternative", the bank noted.
Vedrana Jelusić Kasic, EBRD director, regional head of Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Slovakia said: "We are pleased to see Croatia’s economy growing again. This is promising, and the challenge now is to convert this revival into a long-term sustainable revival. Our project can play an important role in this by bringing together the needs of small enterprises with the abilities of the capital market."
The EBRD signed its first project in Croatia in 1994 and has invested over 3.54 billion euro ($3.9 billion) in 189 projects to date.
The European Union strongly supports the process of facilitating access to finance for SMEs through its regulation (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2 - MiFID2, shall enter into force in early 2017), enabling SME markets to have less restrictive listing and reporting requirements compared to the main markets.
($=0.907175 euro)