-I am extremely satisfied with the work of HAMAG this year. We have managed to increase the guarantee potential by one billion kuna, we have modified the guarantee programs, and the number of requests for issuing guarantees has increased by 94 percent-, stated the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Crafts, Gordan Maras.
Minister Maras also announced at a press conference where the agency’s business results for the first 11 months of this year were presented, the goals for the next year, among which the most important are: at least 500 approved guarantees, increasing the support for investments through guarantees to 1.2 billion kuna, and realizing the value of investments for 100 million euros, while a new offering from HAMAG will be micro-lending.
In addition, the amount of support for 2013 will be increased from 32.5 million to 60 million kuna. Otherwise, the presented analysis shows that the main growth in issued guarantees only began in August, and the CEO of HAMAG, Darko Liović, explains that they only managed to sign contracts with 20 financial institutions in the country in July, among which are all the relevant commercial banks. The amount of approved guarantees in 2012 is almost 250 million kuna, while the approved loans with those guarantees amount to almost 400 million kuna. This means that the amount of supported investments in issued guarantees has exceeded 700 million kuna. In terms of jobs, this means 650 new ones. Regarding the structure of guarantees, HAMAG issued the most in the Growth and Agriculture program, followed by liquidity, while New Entrepreneurs are in third place.
As for the support, Liović states that 32.5 million kuna has been allocated, with the most for new technologies at 22.5 million. It is also interesting that the average amount of support is 160,000 compared to last year’s 31,000, and support has been granted to 204 entrepreneurs.
