EIB provides a loan of up EUR 250 million to help SMEs in Spain cope with COVID-19 crisis

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing the Institut Catalá de Finances (ICF) with a loan of up to EUR 250 million to support SMEs, the companies most vulnerable to the COVID-19 shock.

The two institutions have signed the first EUR 150 million instalment of this financing agreement under an accelerated approval procedure put in place by the EIB in this emergency to ensure that the funds reach Spanish firms as quickly as possible. This is one of the first operations mounted under the EIB’s EUR 5 billion programme to safeguard European businesses in the face of the coronavirus crisis.

The EIB funds made available to the ICF will help to alleviate the liquidity needs of small and medium-sized Catalan businesses and will be deployed without delay by the Catalan public financial institution through a range of financing solutions that it has been putting place since the beginning of the pandemic.

EIB Vice-President Emma Navarro, who is responsible for the EU bank’s activity in Spain, said: “We are pleased to sign this new agreement with the ICF, strengthening our support for Spanish SMEs in these difficult times. Small businesses are the backbone of the European and Spanish economy, and are therefore in the front line of the EIB’s response to the coronavirus crisis. We shall continue working to help them address the liquidity needs caused by the pandemic in order to safeguard jobs and launch the economic recovery as quickly as possible.”

After Madrid, Catalonia is the Spanish region hit second hardest by the coronavirus health emergency. The pandemic is having a negative economic impact on 90% of Catalan SMEs, three-quarters of which are suffering from liquidity problems, according to a report by the region’s small business support agency PIMEC. This EIB and ICF funding will help to preserve Catalonia’s productive fabric at this time of crisis.

Original source: EIB
Published on 28 May 2020