
Small and medium-sized enterprises will have access to financing from the Fund for Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth of Moldova (FACEM).
The Cabinet of Ministers, at a meeting held on February 28, approved the Regulation of Activity of the Fund for Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. The fund is meant to contribute to the development of enterprises from strategic and priority areas with growth potential, to create jobs, to increase the financial support for enterprises and access to financing in general and to increase competitiveness by providing access to funds. The Fund is created and will operate as part of the Organization for Entrepreneurship Development (ODA) with the status of an internal unit, without forming a legal entity. FACEM's resources will be generated from allocations from the state budget, funds allocated by development partners and/or donors (loans/borrowings, financial and technical assistance, grants), income obtained from loans and on-lending, usufruct obtained from investing free financial means and from other legal sources. Fund's means will be granted to beneficiaries through financial partners which can be banks and non-bank credit organizations (NBCOs). Partners can be banks or non-bank credit organization registered with the NBM/ CNPF, which are not under resolution or suspended / not in liquidation process and are not subject to supervisory measures prohibiting the granting of credits. Financial partners must have a proper organizational structure, with banks having an active SME loan portfolio and NBCOs having an SME loan portfolio of at least 20% of their active loan balance. The partners must not have debts to the national public budget, and the share of unfavorable loans with the financial partners must not exceed the allowed limits. The FACEM Fund is expected to provide entrepreneurs with access to low-cost financing. In 2022, 70 million lei were allocated to finance the Fund, some of which are also planned to be used this year. For 2023-2025, the size of the Fund will be about 2.8 billion lei. No more than 1% of the FACEM size will be used for administrative expenses. // 28.02.2023 - InfoMarket