The Competition Protection Council made a decision yesterday regarding the level of the basic reference interest rate set at 7.33 percent and a decision on the level of the temporary reference interest rate set at 4.98 percent, which will be applied from January 1, 2010, it was announced today by the Council.
The reference rate is applied as a marginal interest rate in determining whether a certain loan has been granted under conditions that are more favorable than market conditions, and it has been calculated based on the average interest rate on treasury bills of the Ministry of Finance with a maturity of 364 days recorded in September, October, and November of this year. The temporary reference rate is determined by reducing the basic reference rate by 32 percent, in accordance with the rules on state aid that were adopted as one of the anti-recession measures aimed at enabling Croatian entrepreneurs easier access to capital. In other words, the Council explains, more favorable loans that providers of state aid, such as HBOR, grant to entrepreneurs using this rate will be considered compliant with the State Aid Act, provided they are approved by the Agency. The basic reference rate and the temporary basic reference rate will change during the year if the average interest rate on treasury bills recorded in the previous three months and the difference in reference rates in the eurozone deviates by more than ±15 percent from the last established average. (H)
