The European Investment Bank (EIB) and BBVA signed four loans today worth a total of EUR 600m. The funds will be used to offer financing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Spain, providing liquidity and facilitating their investments.
The first loan for EUR 300m will be used to finance SMEs and mid-cap companies in different industrial sectors. 20% of this loan will be for companies in convergence objective regions to accelerate their economic growth.
Two other loans signed today, for a total of EUR 100m, will be used to finance agricultural companies in order to improve the sector's efficiency and competitiveness. Part of this funding will go to irrigation systems that optimise water consumption and to more environmentally-friendly agricultural production systems. The goal is to reduce the environmental impact of agricultural activities and fight against climate change.
Finally, the EIB and BBVA signed a EUR 200m loan to finance the investments of SMEs and mid-caps in sectors with high potential to create jobs, such as education, health and renewable energy. The funds from this loan will go to small and medium-scale projects in convergence regions.
EIB Vice-President Román Escolano underscored the EIB's contribution to job creation and agricultural modernisation: “These loans not only facilitate the financing of SMEs, the backbone of the Spanish economy and its greatest source of job creation, but also help to modernise the agricultural sector, making it more efficient and more environmentally-friendly”.
BBVA's CEO Carlos Torres Vila emphasised that SMEs had always been a strategic priority for the bank, which had traditionally implemented specific support plans to bolster business development and employment generation. “The agreement signed today with the EIB strengthens our commitment to SMEs, one of the main drivers of the Spanish economy.”
