October 20 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's economy ministry said it proposed to the government to include bigger companies in the loan guarantee scheme of state-owned Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) for liquidity support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) affected by the coronavirus crisis.
The extended version of the support programme would benefit bigger companies as well, with personnel of over 250, annual turnover exceeding 97.5 million levs ($58.9 million/49.8 million euro) and/or asset value higher than 84 million levs, the economy ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The proposed changes to the programme also include increasing the maximum amount of a loan to 1.0 million levs from 300,000 levs for SMEs, while bigger companies could have guarantees for loans of up to 2.0 million levs.
The economy ministry also proposed the guarantee to be increased to 50% of the loan value from 30% and the application deadline to be extended by six months, until June 20, 2021.
Over the last two months, some 600 companies have benefited from loans with a total value of over 80 million levs under the programme, the economy ministry noted in its statement.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)