Banca Comerciala Romana said it signed an agreement with European Investment Bank for a €75 million loan at the end of December last year. The loan will be used to finance SME projects.

“BCR has been, over the year a main partner for many of EIB projects in Romania. These projects were beneficial for both Romanian companies and the Romanian economy as a whole. BCR constantly focuses on financing SMEs as over 40% of the Romanian SMEs are banking with BCR, which is the leader on this market segment", stated Ramona Ivan (photo), executive director of BCR’s Financial Institutions Division.

SMEs which are developing projects in industry, tourism, services and agriculture, are eligible for an EIB financing with the maximum value of the loan of EUR 12.5 million, the total cost of each eligible project not exceeding €25 million.

BCR is also benefiting from an Intermediated Loan from EIB contracted in November 2006, amounting to €50 million, used for financing over 90 projects developed by small and middle sized enterprises in Romania, mainly in the fields of agriculture, livestock breeding and food industry, production industry, tourism and services.

The biggest projects have benefited from up to €5million loans, with an average loan value of about €550,000.

"BCR's collaboration with the EIB has proved to be a successful one, as the conditions of the EIB-BCR loans are turned into instruments really supporting the sustainable development of SMEs in Romania," added Ramona Ivan.

Since 1990, the European Investment Bank has signed loan agreements in Romania amounting to some €7.8 billion, of which some €780 million has supported SME and municipality projects, including the current one.