Top European bank, EU provide Moldova with five million euros for modernizing small, medium-sized enterprises

Chisinau, 4 December /MOLDPRES/ - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Union provide a new loan worth five million euros for the modernization of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) from Moldova, in line with the EU standards. The money is offered through the EU4Business-EBRD crediting line, within which EU provides non-refundable financing as part of its initiative EU4Business-EBRD. The money will be offered through BCR Chisinau.   

An EBRD’s press release reads that the small and medium-sized enterprises from Moldova will be able to modernize their operations and services with the help of EBRD and EU. The two institutions open new opportunities of financing, in order to adjust the work of Moldovan enterprises to the EU standards.  

The financing is meant to help Moldovan companies improve the production process and quality of the final products, so that they become more competitive on the EU market. Exporters must also observe the EU standards in the fields of environmental protection, health, security, quality and products’ safety.    

„Companies from Moldova face a strong competition both on the EU market and on the domestic one, where they should compete with foreign companies. The improvement of standards and the quality of products and services will help them become more competitive. We are happy with the fact that, in continuation, we can provide funds to help them improve the quality level at home, as well as abroad,” Head of the Chisinau-based EBRD Office Angela Sax said.  

CEO of BCR Chisinau Juan Luis Martin Ortigosa noted that “due to this agreement with EBRD, BCR Chisinau will provide its clients an instrument for implementing new investment projects, which will help improve their competitiveness on local and international markets.”  

This is the second loan for SMEs from Moldova, provided by EBRD in the last two months. On 25 October 2018, EBRD signed with Procreditbank an agreement on the opening of a financing line worth ten million euros for the development of SMEs and their adjusting to European standards. The money was offered from EU4Business-EBRD – a joint EBRD-EU programme meant for small- and medium-sized enterprises from Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, estimated at 1.1 billion euros, provided according to credit lines by EBRD and 60 million euros of EU’s grants.   

Since the beginning of its work in Moldova, EBRD has financed 123 projects worth more than 1.26 billion euros. The current portfolio of EBRD is of 556 million euros, of which 62 per cent was allocated for infrastructure, 25 per cent – for the energy sector, seven per cent – for industry, trade and agro-business, seven per cent – for financial institutions.