Ministry: Banks give 4 bln rbl interest-free loans to small business

MOSCOW, Apr 22 (PRIME) -- Russian banks have issued about 4 billion rubles of interest-free loans to micro and small businesses to pay wages, the Economic Development Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Our monitoring shows that 15 banks, which signed the agreement with the Economic Development Ministry, issued about 4 billion rubles of interest-free loans under 1,800 requests to support employment as of April 21,” the statement read.

The ministry received 36 applications from banks that want to participate in the program and to issue about 27 billion rubles of loans to businesses. The authority approved 17, including Russian Agricultural Bank, Sberbank, Promsvyazbank, VTB Bank, AK BARS Bank, Bank Kuznetsky, Chalyabinvestbank, Sarovbusinessbank, Russian National Commercial Bank, SME Bank, Otkritie Financial Corporation Bank, Bank Aktsept, Alfa-Bank, Tomckpromstroybank, Vladbusinessbank, Asian-Pacific Bank, and Sovcombank.

The program helps small businesses, microbusinesses, and medium-sized businesses from the list of industries affected by the coronavirus to take out loans with duration of up to 12 months to pay wages during the coronavirus lockdown. The interest rate on the loans stands at 0% for the first six months and at 4% for the remaining six months.

(76.2562 rubles – U.S. $1)

End %%md/jst%%