Today, the Minister of Finance, Sinisa Mali, talked with the director of the office of the American Development Financial Corporation (DFC) in Belgrade, John Jovanovic, about launching a new guarantee scheme for loans to small and medium enterprises in Serbia.
“I am convinced that we will create favorable conditions for our businessmen, and DFC will be the guarantor of the loans taken from banks in Serbia to the greatest extent,” said Mali, the Ministry of Finance announced.
According to him, the intention of the DFC to provide guarantees for loans in Serbia is proof that there is trust in the American administration in the economic policy of Serbia.
“We have low and stable inflation, which we keep below two percent, a secure level of foreign exchange reserves, a healthy banking and financial system, balanced state finances and a labor market that has not experienced major turbulence and layoffs. DFC recognizes all this as Serbia’s development potential of the SME sector,” Mali said.
According to him, the meeting discussed investments in women’s entrepreneurship and encouraging startups, which would also be part of the guarantee scheme.
As he explained, there are still a lot of details to be agreed and to discuss the new guarantee scheme with the banks.
“The previous guarantee scheme has justified all our expectations. Businessmen have two billion euros at their disposal with banks, of which they have already used a little more than half of the funds, ie about 1.3 billion euros. About 10 percent of that money has gone to refinance existing loans, while 90 percent are loans taken, but I am glad that they are not only loans for liquidity but also for investments,” said Mali.
The Minister reminded that the first agreed guarantee scheme ends at the end of this year, and that the new one, agreed with DFC, could come to life at the beginning of next year, so that businessmen would have a little more time for business planning and application.
“It is very important to provide economic entities with stable, but above all as cheap as possible sources of financing on the market. Also, it is important for us that companies have a choice, that is, to choose what is best for them on the market. It can also provide significantly lower interest rates, which is our goal. Therefore, we will work intensively on developing other financial instruments that can finance the growth of companies operating in Serbia,” said Mali.
Mali expressed the expectation that the future is not far off when companies will finance their development with their own funds, Beta reports.
