Brussels, 14/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - On the eve of the EU-South Africa summit (15 September in Kruger National Park), European Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and Tamsyn Barton, Director-General of the European Investment Bank (EIB), continued their visit to development projects co-funded by the EU. On Tuesday 14 September, they visited the company Afrika Biopharma Manufacturing fina, a South African company which received €0.7 million from the EU's Risk Capital Facility to co-finance a loan of €1.5 million from a South African financial institution. The move created 38 jobs in the company.
“The Risk Capital Facility set up by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank is an innovative and successful tool to help the development of the private sector for the benefit of formerly disadvantaged people. Our target is to contribute to creating 13,000 jobs in the coming years”, the commissioner announced.
The aim of the Risk Capital Facility is to improve access to funding for SMEs, speed up the creation of new jobs for disadvantaged people, particularly women (of the target of 13,000 jobs for 2012, at least 30% will be reserved for women), increase the participation of people who have been victims of apartheid by helping them to become stakeholders and offering them the opportunity to access executive positions.
Since 2001, the Risk Capital Facility has seen 110 investments of a total of €67 million and the creation of 9,400 jobs. In mid-2011, the second tranche of the Facility (2007-2012) funded 44 SMEs and investment funds which went on to invest in SMEs. (A.N./transl.fl)