UniCredit Bank, EUR 1 bln in loans in Romania for co-financing of EU projects

The total amount of loans approved by UniCredit Bank to beneficiaries of public financing from non-refundable EU funds has exceeded EUR 1 billion since the second half of 2009 (when EU funds started being allocated) until the end of 2015 (implementation deadline for projects from the 2007-2013 financial programming period), according to a press release from the bank.

This means that UniCredit Bank provided co-financing of the private contribution to approximately 1,400 projects within the operational programs aimed at the private sector. Of those projects, 40 percent were in the industrial sector (Sectoral Operational Program ‘Increase of Competitiveness’), followed by agriculture with 35 percent {National Program for Rural Development} and projects within the Regional Operational Program with 10 percent. Bridging loans represented approximately 40 percent of the approved credits, registering individual values of between EUR 20,000 and EUR 20 million.

As for the types of clients who took out the loans, “we covered the entire typology of eligible private and public beneficiaries – from large companies and SMEs to local public authorities, NGOs, universities or research institutions,” said Valentin Boldeiu, coordinator for the European funds department at UniCredit Bank. He added that the projects in question were also varied, “from investments in tangible and intangible assets to program such as fishing ones or cross-border cooperation.”

The volume of credits is given by the value of facilities destined for the implementation of those projects that benefited from non-refundable public aid between 2007-2013, and also by the facilities approved for the issuance of comfort letters. Supporting the beneficiaries of non-refundable funds includes not only the credit products destined for each component of the investment project, but also pre and post implementation consulting services and bank monitoring of the implementation phase of the investment project, details the UniCredit Bank press release.

Andreea Tint