SME Lead

"Capital support loans" will be made available for small- and medium-size enterprises, or SMEs, to reduce the impact of the global financial crisis on the real economy, according to the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, or ITO, and Denizbank.

Within the new cooperation agreement, SMEs that are members of the ITO will be able to use capital support loans with up to 72 months maturity as well as use "equal installment loans" for up to 36 months, with reduced interest rates. The loans would enable SMEs to meet their long-term financing needs for goods and services payments with up to a six-year maturity.

Denizbank, the Turkish unit of Belgium's Dexia, will provide the opportunity for companies that offer property as collateral to obtain loans for up to 500,000 Turkish Liras without repayment for three months. With the global economic turmoil deeply affecting companies, fulfilling financing needs has attained crucial importance, Murat Yalçıntaş, chairman of ITO, told journalists in Istanbul on Thursday.

"As ITO, we launched a credit mechanism for our members following the 2001 crisis. Cooperating with Turkey's leading financial institutions, we are still working to provide loans to our members under favorable conditions. Through this understanding, we are renewing our cooperation with Denizbank that we established in 2008," said Yalçıntaş.

Denizbank Financial Services Group Chairman Hakan AteÅŸ said Turkish SMEs suffer from a lack of accessibility to financial instruments and services, compared to their peers in the West. The number of SMEs that have benefited from Denizbank's SME banking products and services has reached 400,000, AteÅŸ said. "Our target is to raise this figure to half a million by the end of the year," said AteÅŸ.

*source-hurriyetDailyNews