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.
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.