$10m supplement for RISP II will be disbursed in August-September

The rural entrepreneurs from August-September this year could benefit from loans from the additional financing of $10 million offered by the World Bank to Moldova to continue implementation of the Second Rural Investment and Services Project (RISP II), Info-Prim Neo reports. The major objective of the project is to provide long-term support to accelerate agricultural recovery and growth so that Moldova’s agricultural and rural sectors can play their full role in providing the underpinnings for future income growth and poverty reduction. The project has three components. The Rural Advisory Services component aims to provide information, knowledge and know-how to newly established private farmers and rural population through a national, decentralized network of private rural advisory service providers. The Rural Business Development component finances technical assistance to rural entrepreneurs with the aim of creating sustainable rural businesses, which will potentially become clients of financial institutions. The Rural Finance component aims to ensure broader access to investment financing for farmers and rural entrepreneurs. Diana Rotaru, monitoring and assessment consultant with the project, said that 481 rural businesses have been started from August 2006, when RISP II was launched (the World Bank offered a $15 million credit), as against 390 as initially planned. There were provided 499 loans compared with 400 planned, and created 1,400 new workplaces compared with 900 projected. The loans are provided for development and for starting a business. The lending conditions are as follows: the businesses are created in rural areas; a loan is at most $100,000; the own contribution of the beneficiaries without credit history must be minimum 10% of the investment; while of other beneficiaries – minim 20%; the loan is repaid in up to 15 years; the rate of interest is floating (fixed 2 times a year). The participating financial institutions are the commercial banks Moldova-Agroindbank, Moldindconbank, Banca Sociala, Victoriabank, FinComBank, Banca de Economii, and Mobiasbanca.