The EIB today granted the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) two loans of EUR 250 million each with the twofold aim of providing access credit for Spanish SMEs and midcaps (firms with up to 3 000 employees) and at the same time supporting their exports. As part of the deal, ICO will match the EIB funding with a EUR 500 million contribution of its own, meaning that a total of EUR 1 billion will be made available. EIB Vice-President Román Escolano and ICO’s CEO, Pablo Zalba, signed the two loan agreements in Luxembourg today in the presence of EIB President Werner Hoyer.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) today granted the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) two loans of EUR 250 million each with the twofold aim of providing access credit for Spanish SMEs and midcaps (firms with up to 3 000 employees) and at the same time supporting their exports. As part of the deal, ICO will match the EIB funding with a EUR 500 million contribution of its own, meaning that a total of EUR 1 billion will be made available. EIB Vice-President Román Escolano and ICO’s CEO, Pablo Zalba, signed the two loan agreements in Luxembourg today in the presence of EIB President Werner Hoyer.

The first EUR 250 million loan is designed to finance long-term investment by Spanish SMEs and midcaps, which will benefit from favourable maturity and pricing conditions. The previous similar agreement between the EIB and ICO served to finance over 7 000 projects of Spanish companies, mainly in the trade and industry sectors, thereby fostering economic growth and job creation.

Support for exports

The EIB and ICO are also providing funds to enable Spanish SMEs and midcaps to go global. The second EUR 250 million EIB loan signed today is designed to support ICO’s “Exporters” product, which makes it possible to fund in advance the invoices issued in the short-term exporting activity of SMEs and independent firms and the upfront costs of manufacturing and processing exported goods.

At the signing ceremony, EIB Vice-President Román Escolano highlighted “the positive impact of these two agreements on job creation in Spain. SMEs and midcaps are key drivers of economic growth in our country, and the loans signed today demonstrate the deep cooperation between the EIB and ICO in jointly supporting the financing of our companies.”

ICO’s CEO, Pablo Zalba, added that “working together with the EIB, through its intermediated credit lines ICO will continue supporting Spanish firms, SMEs and independent companies, providing them with finance on highly favourable terms and helping them to go global. This will in turn have a marked macroeconomic impact on our country and lead to increased economic growth and job creation.”

With these two loans the EIB and ICO are supporting both small businesses and the export sector, two of the main engines of job creation inasmuch as, according to European Commission estimates, every extra billion euros worth of exports creates 14 000 new jobs.

This type of financing operation also enables ICO to position itself as the go-to lender in Spain for supporting and promoting the export sector in line with Spain’s changing economy. Last year, ICO’s “Exporters” line financed the exports of more than 43 000 firms to the tune of nearly EUR 3 billion.

Over the past few years ICO has beefed up its strategy of supporting the internationalisation and exporting of Spanish firms, SMEs and independent companies, implementing financing facilities covering all their needs when launching globally, from debt instruments to guarantees and equity participations.