The Ministry of Finance launched a project to on-lend to young entrepreneurs with preferential interest rate. Two persons already received loans as part of this project, the head of the Ministry’s Financing Directorate Raisa Cantemir was quoted by IPN as saying in a program on Canal2 TV channel.

According to her, the project is intended for people aged between 18 and 35 and money is provided for initial capitalization if they run a developing business or for startups. “The young people go to banks as the Ministry of Finance on-lends through the banking system in order to avoid lending risks,” stated Raisa Cantemir.

She noted that a young person can obtain at most 1.5 million lei and can apply for several such loans, but these must not exceed the mentioned sum. “The goal of spending in any business area, either services, processing of agricultural products or even trade, is to invest in goods and equipment or raw material. The grace period is up to 12 months on the main sum, not on interest,” said Raisa Cantemir.

Roman Ceban, policy manager at the Moldova Business People Association, said that by this project the state for the first time gives an increased credit of trust to the young people, who will benefit from interest rates lower by 2% than the current rates. “During the past two-three years, the exchange rates of the national currency decreased constantly, but a decrease of 2% will make the loans much more attractive to young people,” she stated.

The launch of the Lending to Young People Facility initiated by the Ministry of Finance is a start and is fully based on the available funds of investment credit lines financed with state foreign loans for developing the real sector provided by the World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The on-lending is performed through local interested partner financial institutions that assume all the lending risks and signed on-lending contracts with the Ministry of Finance.

A condition of the program is for the founders of enterprises to be Moldovan citizens and to own at least 75% of the enterprise or business. The banks can impose an interest rate of at most 3% on such loans.