The Government seeks a “reformulation” of the Official Credit Institute (ICO) with the idea that it focuses on SMEs and that they access financing, after detecting that they do not have a tendency to leverage themselves, as is the case in other European countries. .
Spain has a fabric made up essentially of SMEs, they represent more than 90% of companies and they encounter a kind of glass ceiling when they reach a certain size in their balance sheets that causes them to remain stagnant due to not accessing bank financing.
This was diagnosed by the general director of Economic Policy of the Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business, Víctor Ausín, during his participation in the ‘XXVII National Congress of Family Business’ that was held in Santander.
As part of a discussion panel on the future of Spain and the necessary measures for a better country, Ausín pointed out that Spain is the European country with the fewest SMEs with a rating, evidencing a disconnect between non-bank financing and medium-sized SMEs.
“We have a huge army of micro-SMEs that do not have access to banks”
“We have a huge army of micro-SMEs that do not have access to banks, not because the banks are bad, far from it, but many boast that they do not have debt”, contrasting with those in the rest of Europe, which do tend to leverage themselves. to finance investments.
Given this problem, “the idea” with the “reformulation” of the ICO is “that it has a force more focused on SMEs, on making them grow and on avoiding those market failures that exist in terms of financing,” according to Ausín.
Financing linked to the recovery plan
From the ICO they added Servimedia that work is being done in this direction once the emergencies arising from the covid crisis and the war in Ukraine have been attended to. Now, the ICO focuses on financing linked to the recovery plan and it is expected that next week the banks will begin to market the ICO Company and Entrepreneurs line, endowed with 8,150 million to support the growth and resilience of companies, competitiveness and digitalization, especially of SMEs. Through the addendum to the recovery plan, the ICO will channel a total of 40,000 million euros in loans.
The organization explains on its website that one of its functions is to act as a national promotion bank, placing “special emphasis” on financing SMEs and the self-employed, with its mediation lines, with direct financing products and through its manager. venture capital, Axis.
Of its loan portfolio, as of June 30 of this year, 28% corresponds to financing for SMEs and other lines of mediation in Spain and 8% to SMEs abroad. He thus highlights that he is “a pioneer in financing sectors with restricted access to private financing,” citing SMEs.
In fact, in its 2022-2027 strategic plan, the ICO explains that one of its action plans is to strengthen the ICO mediation lines and adapt them to the needs of SMEs and the self-employed, as well as encourage the diversification of their financing channels. .
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced on October 3 at a conference on SMEs and the recovery plan, 4.5 billion euros in subsidies and 50 billion euros in loans from the plan for these companies. He specified that 1,380 million will be in subsidies from Red.es, 3,000 million will come from the Perte, 630 million from the guarantees of Cersa, 2,400 million from the Social Impact Fund and the Cofides Co-investment Fund, more than 30,000 million from the ICO lines green and ICO Companies and Entrepreneurs and 16.4 billion from the State Society for Technological Transformation (SETT).
“We have dedicated more than a third of the Recovery Plan to SMEs: two out of every five euros of the calls resolved by the plan reach them directly,” Sánchez said then, highlighting that “one in five small and medium-sized companies are already direct beneficiaries.” of the recovery plan, which represents more than half a million companies”.
Of the 42,612 million euros that have been resolved from the recovery plan by all public administrations, more than 16,800 million euros (39.5%) have an SME as a direct beneficiary, according to the latest data, of 31 of August.
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