BELGRADE (Serbia), April 8 (SeeNews) – Serbian banks will extend to local companies low-interest loans worth a total 162 billion dinars (1.74 billion euro/$2.29 billion), more than initially planned, as part of a government effort to cushion the impact of the global financial slowdown, Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic said.
“The soft loans programme proved to be so popular that we decided to expand it,” Dinkic told a news conference on Tuesday. The government's initial plan was to extend soft loans to the total worth of 122 billion dinars.
The government will allocate 10 billion dinars to the programme, up from the planned 8.0 billion dinars, Dinkic said.
Serbian commercial banks have extended 170 million euro in soft loans to companies and 10 million euro to citizens since the programme was launched in late February, he added.
Of the total volume of soft loans extended under the programme, the Serbian unit of Italy’s Intesa gave out 86 million euro, Komercijalna Banka provided some 31 million euro, the local unit of Procredit Bank extended 18.1 million euro, Societe Generale provided about 8.5 million euro, and Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank lent some 8.3 million euro in credits, Dinkic said. Big companies took loans totalling 80 million euro, while small and medium-sized firms borrowed a combined 78 million euro.
Banks received requests for 447 million euro in soft loans by March 31, the Economy Ministry said last week.
The soft-term credits will have an annual interest rate of around 6.0%, Dinkic said in January when the programme was first announced. At the time, Serbian commercial banks were lending to companies at interest rates of 11% to 14%.
(1 euro=93.101 Serbian dinars)
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