March 15 (SeeNews) - The European Investment Fund (EIF) said on Monday that it has signed an 85 million euro ($101 million) guarantee agreement with Raiffeisenbank Bulgaria to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small mid-caps in Bulgaria.
Under the terms of the agreement, the EIF will provide a 70% guarantee on each new loan up to a maximum amount of 7.5 million euro per loan until the end of 2021, the EIF said in a statement.
The guarantee is backed by the European Guarantee Fund (EGF), which was set up as part of the European Union’s COVID-19 recovery package.
"The first European Guarantee Fund signature with a Bulgarian bank is excellent news for the Bulgarian economy. I want to thank our partners at Raiffeisenbank for reaching this important milestone with us," EIB vice president Lilyana Pavlova said. "It comes after a record year when the EIF committed some 328 million euro in new operations, which is expected to unlock 1.8 billion euro for SMEs in Bulgaria, and most of this sum will support those struggling under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic."
($ = 0.8382 euro)
Raiffeisenbank (Bulgaria) EAD is among the biggest banks in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here