The President of the Croatian Agency for Small Business, Tomislav Kovačević, presented new guarantee programs of Hamag under the names New Technologies, Entrepreneur in the Zone, and Subordinated Debt to the leaders of the association of small and medium-sized enterprises on Wednesday.
Hamag has been recording increasingly better results in recent years, and last year the amount of investments it secured approached one billion kuna. – The amount of investments we secured last year for a commercial bank is not large, but it represents a great success for us – said Kovačević.
Of the presented programs, perhaps the most attractive is Entrepreneur in the Zone, aimed at successful entrepreneurs in the manufacturing and processing industry who have been operating for more than 36 months. The maximum loan amount in this program is 12 million kuna, and Hamag covers 80 percent of the guarantee. Interestingly, this program is actually a package, in which entrepreneurs who wish to relocate their business to an entrepreneurial zone also have an additional facilitation regarding the payment of the electricity connection. Namely, the state has signed a contract with HEP under which the entrepreneur pays a lower connection price, up to 60 percent lower than usual, and has the option to pay the connection fee in installments.
The New Technologies program covers a loan amount of up to 15 million kuna with a 50 percent guarantee from Hamag, while Subordinated Debt covers an amount of up to 7.5 million kuna. In addition to presenting new guarantee programs, Kovačević announced that Hamag will be accredited next year as an accreditation body for the third phase of the EU IPA program. IPA is the EU pre-accession assistance instrument, and according to the announcement, Hamag will train people to provide support from pre-accession funds. (Tatjana Brebrić)
