18 Februarie 2009

SMEs bankruptcies: 90% driven by state seizures

The utmost insolvencies faced by small and medium-sized companies were driven by the state seizures, with merely 10% of the failures filed by the companies themselves, said Constantin Nita the SMEs, commerce and business environment minister, earlier today, cited by NewsIn.

“Companies experience difficulties due to the 2 billion euro public debt. At the same time, companies owing money to the state had their account blocked.” explained Ovidiu Nicolescu, president of the Romanian small to medium-sized company national council CNIPNMR.

Nita blamed lenders for not having proposed any product designed for SMEs. He added that banks needed to be more flexible with the loan rates.

The National Loan Guaranteeing Fund for SMEs FNGCIMM estimates that the loans secured this year will grow by more than 60 percent year-on-year, to 2.78 billion lei, as the fund will give unconditional irrevocable warranties up to 80 percent for all the loans destined to SMEs.

The fund will also give 100% guarantees for loans contracted by SMEs from commercial banks and the duration of the process will be reduced to only three days, so that companies can access the money as soon as possible.

As Nita sees it, the most affected by financial seizures will be companies operating on the construction and industrial markets.

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