September 25 (SeeNews) - The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) will extend a 15 million euro ($22 million) credit line to the majority state-owned Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) to back local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), BDB said on Friday.
This will be the third credit line worth 15 million euro extended by CEB to BDB, the Bulgarian lender said in a statement.
"This project will facilitate access to credit for Bulgarian SMEs, which represent 99% of all the country’s businesses, with a view to stimulating growth, strengthening the economic fabric and thus creating sustainable jobs," CEB said in a separate statement posted on its website.
BDB (www.bdbank.bg), in which the state holds a 99.97% stake, is the successor of Encouragement Bank which was renamed last year to indicate it will function as an export-promoting development bank.
($ = 0.6827 euro)