TIRANA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide a loan of up to 2 million euros (2.11 million U.S. dollars) to Albania's Union Bank, to support the financing of the agribusiness and tourism sectors in the country, the EBRD said in a statement on Friday.
The investment will boost on-lending in the two underfinanced sectors that are crucial to Albania's economic development, the EBRD said.
So far, Union Bank is the seventh partner financial institution in the country to join the EBRD's Albania Agribusiness and Tourism Support Facility (AATSF), a financial instrument designed to support commercial banks in offering more loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the two target sectors.
Since the launch of the EBRD's AATSF in 2016, around 180 million euros in credit lines and risk-sharing facilities has been allocated to partner banks in Albania, of which those banks have on-lent over 110 million euros to more than 6,200 local agribusiness and tourism SMEs. (1 euro = 1.056 U.S. dollars) ■
