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Bulgaria: Bank Lending to Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Rural Areas; an Analysis of Supply and Demand

Report N. 8 - January 2005









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    Romania: Bank Lending to Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Rural areas; an Analysis of Supply and Demand
    Report N. 9 - January 2005
    2005
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    The economic situation in Romania has improved over the last years and starting in 2001 the growth rate averaged some 5 percent per year. Also the development of the financial sector has gathered pace and domestic and foreign direct investments, in view of the country’s accession to the EU in 2007, are rapidly picking up. These favourable trends, however, are far from being evenly distributed over the territory: Bucharest and a few other big towns in more favourable regions account for the bulk of the growth, while a large part of the country’s economic potential, representing small cities and rural communities, is not fully utilized. One of the reasons that financial resources allocated to rural areas remain under-utilized is the inadequacy of financial services to match the needs of local business, notwithstanding the number of specially designed financing programs in this respect. This publication is part of report series published under the FAO Investment Centre/European Bank f or Reconstruction and Development Cooperation Programme. The series presents sector reviews and studies undertaken in Central and Eastern Europe that cover development issues and innovative areas to increase investment in agriculture in the region. Romania's entry into the European Union in 2007 is expected to have a significant impact on the country's small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in rural areas. EBRD's Financial Institutions team, together with its Agribusiness team, h as developed a Facility to mix EU grant and EBRD loans in favour of rural SMEs in EU accession countries. EBRD called upon FAO's expertise to review lending opportunities in Romania's rural sector. This report was prepared to put forward recommendations to EBRD and local financial intermediaries, on which clients the EU/EBRD Facility should focus and on the types of financial products required to serve these new clients. The analysis can be used by other local or international financial institut ions interested in rural credit.
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    Bulgaria: Expanding ProCredit’s Operations in Rural Areas
    Report N. 4 - January 2004
    2004
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    The focus of this exercise was on issues connected with a possible substantial increase in the agricultural loan asset portfolio of ProCredit Bank. This summary outlines the type of client who could be targeted by the bank – the core borrowing group, the ways in which the bank could market its services to the desired core clientele, the type of loans for which a demand is clear, the enterprise types for which credit-financed investment appears to be most profitable, the regional considerations a nd, finally, the personnel requirements within the bank. Agricultural sector investment opportunities exist in Bulgaria, but continuing structural problems, especially in the areas of land tenure and marketing, constrain the extent to which the full potential of the sector can be realised through investment in agricultural production alone. These problems will not remain as permanent features of Bulgarian agriculture; the investment climate can be expected to improve over time.
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    Small and medium enterprises and nutrition: understanding linkages, seizing opportunities
    Discussion paper
    2024
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    Multiple actors should be mobilized to ensure that agrifood systems help meet nutrition and sustainability objectives. Among these, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) engaged in the supply of food are of crucial importance as they constitute the bulk of agrifood enterprises in most countries. However, there are still few examples of policies, programmes and initiatives aimed specifically at leveraging SMEs due, inter alia, to the novelty of the debate and to the limited understanding of their specific needs and challenges.Based on a literature review, complemented with FAO's experience in capacity development for SMEs, this publication is targeted at programme developers, experts and technical advisors to policymakers. Its objectives are: a) to improve the understanding of the linkages between topics that are traditionally dealt with separately; and b) to promote the inclusion of an SME perspective in nutrition and agrifood system policies, programmes and strategies.

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