Spain: 6 million euro of microloans for women’s enterprises

SolucionesONG ? 26 January 2007 The Spanish Women?s Institute and the Directorate-General for Small and Medium Enterprises will sign an agreement with “La Caixa? that will result in devoting microloans amounting to 6 million Euro to finance women-owned enterprises in conditions better than those usually offered by the market. This global amount of 6 million Euro will be distributed in loans of 15.000 Euro, which only in exceptional cases will reach the maximum amount of 25.000 Euro. These amounts will have to be returned with an interest rate of 5%. The Spanish Public Administration will provide the necessary counselling and guarantees to the projects in co-operation with NGOs working in this field. This programme of microloans was started in 2001 and has contributed to the creation of 635 women-owned enterprises, most of them in the service sector. The main objective of this programme is to achieve that all the women with a business idea do not renounce to put it into practice due to the difficulties encountered, difficulties that are higher than for men. More information on: www.fundacio.lacaixa.es/microcreditos/microcreditos_ca.html