The Generalitat’s Department of Enterprise and Knowledge and the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) have activated a new loan facility with preferential conditions for investment projects and industrial development in Catalonia.

The objective of this facility, which has 100 million euros per year to lend for the 2016-2018 period - 300 million euros in total - is to promote Catalan industrial activity and facilitate its transformation to act as a driving force for economic growth and job creation.

In particular, this financing is available for business projects that involve a minimum investment of 1.5 million euros in the case of SMEs or 5 million in the case of large companies.

The projects must have an impact on the increase in or maintenance of productive activity, employment, the dynamism of the activity in the value chain (especially with regard to local suppliers), intensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the productive processes, and in the rest of its fields of activity.

The ICF will provide the resources and will analyse, formalise and manage the loans. Once the viability of the loan has been analysed by the ICF, the General Directorate of Industry will issue a ruling regarding the industrial values of each project.

Projects that meet the requirements may access this facility, whose loans will have an 12-month EURIBOR interest plus a differential of 2%, on which a discount of up to a maximum of 2% will be applied, which will be the responsibility of the Department of Enterprise and Knowledge in accordance with the order of grants published in the DOGC. The repayment period for these loans will be 10 years, with the possibility of a grace period for capital amortisation of up to 2 years. The amount of each loan cannot exceed 80% of the investment.

Applications for these loans -ICF Industry- must be made through the ICF’s website. The deadline for the submission of applications is June 30, 2018 or until the budget has been exhausted.