As Novac writes on the 21st of May, 2020, HAMAG-BICRO has stimulated the Croatian economy in the amount of 230 million kuna through measures introduced by the government, and within the aid package for micro, small and medium-sized businesses. As early as March the 6th, 2020, the aforementioned agency was one of the first to activate the implementation of six measures and in just two months, it provided liquidity for more than 500 businesses in the amount of more than 165 million kuna through loans.
HAMAG-BICRO’s package of measures to help the economy, which adapted the existing four and introduced two new financial instruments, proved to be a timely response, which is reflected in the large number of received and processed applications. Comparing the numbers of received applications for HAMAG-BICRO loans, it can be seen that the agency received twice as many applications in just one month than for 2019 as a whole.
In addition to the large number of received liquidity requests from companies, over 2,000 businesses have requested a moratorium on the repayment of ESIF loans as well as loans for Agriculture and Rural Development. In this way, HAMAG-BICRO approved a moratorium in the amount of 62 million kuna of additional liquidity for Croatian businesses. Given the significant levels of interest from businesses, the total value of the measures to help the economy, which initially amounted to 1.148 billion kuna, increased to a massive 3 billion kuna.
The analysis of applications by counties shows that the largest number of received requests comes from the City of Zagreb, Split-Dalmatia and Primorje-Gorski Kotar counties. The most represented activities are the provision of accommodation, food preparation and serving and the processing industry, and in the new financial instrument known as the COVID-19 loan, the most heavily represented are those in the retail and wholesale trade.
Businesses still have access to existing HAMAG-BICRO programmes financed from ESI funds, which have been further adjusted by lowering interest rates to 0.1 percent and introducing a moratorium on debt repayment on all previously approved loans. In addition to the above, small business entities in the agricultural, processing and forestry sectors also have access to a Micro Loan for Rural Development for working capital in the amount of up to 25,000 kuna and an interest rate of 0.5 percent.
In addition to loans, ESIF Portfolio Guarantees, Individual Guarantees for Agriculture and Rural Development and the National Plus Programme are also available. In parallel with measures to help the economy, HAMAG-BICRO is working on the finalisation of the first programming period (2014-2020) for Croatia, within which five more tenders were opened: Integrator, Quality Labels, Product Certification to Market, and Innovation vouchers for SMEs.
All HAMAG-BICRO employees were mobilised and focused on the administrative and financial processing of all of these applications, but due to the fact that a large number of companies didn’t submit complete documentation, the time for approving applications was slowed down. In the next ten days, the agency plans to administratively process all applications and intensively continue the process of approving loans in order to provide businesses with the fastest possible access to financing.
An overview of all open tenders, as well as measures to help businesses during the coronavirus epidemic is available on the official website of the agency.
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