Brussels, 08/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 5 December, Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), and Philippe de Fontaine Vive, EIB Vice-President, completed their visit to Tunisia. Their mission focused on support to micro-enterprises and microfinance. The idea is to create “new types of partnerships with high social value”, the EIB states, while the goal is to help “small project sponsors that are finding it difficult to obtain credit by providing them with finance tailored to their situation”.
Two new agreements have been signed. The first, for €1 million, will go to support the microfinance institution Taysir, and the second will provide a €20 million line of credit to Banque Tuniso-Koweitienne (BTK), to be earmarked again for micro-enterprises.
As regards the Taysir agreement, the EIB states that this is “the first to be granted in the microfinance sector in Tunisia” and will enable Taysir to have “a truly leveraging effect and refinance more easily via local financial institutions”, because, in the EIB's view, “Tunisian microfinance institutions are unable to collect savings”. The involvement of civil society is also underscored in the second agreement for BTK. This loan is “of symbolic importance and innovative, and is set to be repeated in other Mediterranean countries. This is the first time the EIB has, in association with a Tunisian bank, offered a financial product developed in close collaboration with civil society in order to meet the funding requirements of small project sponsors as efficiently as possible”, the EIB states. (FB)