- The Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism, José Manuel Soria, signs a new contract with the Mutual Guarantee Societies to share the risk of the guarantees and thus promote financing, prioritizing current operations and internationalization.
- Sand it is expected that the SGR will grant guarantees to more than 10,000 SMEs and entrepreneurs in 2013 for an amount greater than 1,200 million euros.
- CERSA has in 2013 a budget allocation from the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism of 32 million euros.
The Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism, José Manuel Soria, today signed two agreements to promote the financing of SMEs and entrepreneurs with the president of the Official Credit Institute (ICO), Román Escolano, and with the president of the Spanish Confederation of Reciprocal Guarantee Societies (CESGAR), Ramón González Rosalía.
Minister Soria framed the signing of these agreements in the package of measures to support SMEs and entrepreneurs committed by the President of the Government and approved by the Council of Ministers. The minister stressed the importance of increasing the percentage of guarantees and gradually improving the general financing conditions for SMEs.
The two agreements, a new re-guarantee contract between CERSA, under the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism and the Reciprocal Guarantee Societies (SGR) and promotion of the ICO SGR Guarantee Line, reinforce the reciprocal guarantee system, which aims to improve access to finance for SMEs and entrepreneurs and act in a complementary way to bank sources.
The SGR provide guarantees to the loans requested by SMEs and entrepreneurs, while CERSA partially covers the risk assumed by the SGR.
Increased CERSA coverage to SGR
The agreement signed today between the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism and the Spanish Confederation of Reciprocal Guarantee Societies (CESGAR) regulates the coverage by CERSA of the risks of guarantees granted by the Reciprocal Guarantee Societies with the aim of promoting a additional growth in activity:
- CERSA's commitments to revamp the sector's operations increase, going from 50% in 2012 to more than 60% in 2013.
- The maximum size of the operations revaluated by CERSA is increased to 1 million euros.
- The focus of the increase in coverage has been especially focused on operations related to the internationalization of SMEs (revalued by CERSA by 75%) and the financing of working capital (which has increased its coverage to 60%, also including operations with installments from 12 months, when until now only operations over 36 months were covered, and including commercial guarantees in addition to bank guarantees).
- The guarantee operations for entrepreneurs continue to be revaluated by CERSA at 75%. Since 2003, CERSA has provided special support to this segment, which has resulted in the granting of guarantees to nearly 25,000 entrepreneurs for an amount of 2.5 billion euros.
ICO SGR Guarantee Line
The Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, the Official Credit Institute (ICO), under the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and CESGAR have also signed an agreement to promote the ICO SGR Guarantee Line, which combines the effort of ICO and the sector of guarantees for supporting credit institutions in the financing of SMEs.
Through this Line, operations may be requested for an amount of up to 1 million euros for operations guaranteed 100% by an SGR and up to 60,000 euros for operations guaranteed 50% by an SGR. Both investment and liquidity are financed.
Guarantee system
The guarantee system is made up of CERSA and the 27 Reciprocal Guarantee Societies. In 2012, guarantees amounting to 985 million euros were granted under this system to 8,500 SMEs, 1,600 of which were new companies and entrepreneurs. The SGR is expected to grant guarantees in 2013 to more than 10,000 SMEs and entrepreneurs for more than 1,200 million euros, 21% more than in 2012.
To support the important activity of these companies, the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism has increased CERSA's budget this year by 67% to 32 million euros. Likewise, Patrimonio del Estado and ICO signed an extraordinary capital increase of CERSA for 13 million euros.
In addition to the budgetary reinforcements for 2013, the European Investment Fund (EIF) also contributes with greater support through the agreement signed in December 2012 between CERSA and this institution that manages funds from the CIP program of the European Commission.
In this framework of new reinforcements by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism and the ICO to the guarantee system, there is a mutual commitment between CERSA and the Reciprocal Guarantee Societies, to continue increasing support for the financing of SMEs in 2013 .
