Support for SMEs > Access to finance

Start/end date: 2009 - 2021
Countries covered: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine
Implementing partner: Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW)
EU budget: €5.1 million

The Fund aims to foster economic development and prosperity through the sustainable provision of additional development finance, notably to micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and to private households, via qualified local financial institutions.                

Objectives

• Attract private sector capital to the Fund and thereby leverage investments into the region for the development of the private sector, in particular, micro and small enterprises, housing.
• Support beneficiary countries in their progress towards a market economy, in particular through the creation of a competitive sector.

Beneficiaries

• Micro, small and medium enterprises and low-income private households

Activities

• Provision of loans
• Technical assistance

Results

The outstanding portfolio of the EFSE in the six Eastern Partner countries amounted to €271.0 million at the end of Q2|2017, distributed as follows:

• Georgia – 54% (€145.1 million)
• Armenia – 22% (€58.4 million)
• Ukraine – 11 % (€30.8 million)
• Belarus – 7% (€20.0 million)
• Azerbaijan – 4% (€9.8 million)
• Moldova – 2% (€6.9 million)

The majority of EFSE loans have been extended to commercial banks, followed by microfinance banks and microcredit organisations.

By June 2017, the EFSE had disbursed a total amount of €1,727.6 million, to 168,330 end-borrowers in the Eastern Partner countries.

Since the Fund started operating in the Eastern Partnership region in November 2009, the sub-loan disbursement is distributed as follows:

• Georgia – 42% (€733.5 million)
• Armenia – 26% (€441.5 million)
• Azerbaijan – 12% (€211.1 million)
• Moldova – 9% (€155.5 million)
• Ukraine – 7% (€122.1 million)
• Belarus – 4% (€63.9 million)