The financing that after the arrival of the pandemic made available the Official Credit Institute (ICO), financial entities and the Government, the so-called ICO creditswas one of the main tools to prevent the bankruptcy of thousands of companies during the confinement.
After its implementation and given the possibility that the SMEs and large recipient companies could not afford to repay the loans, the Government made available a series of measures, such as lengthening the maturity periods.
Well, they only had to ask for these extensions 35% of the companies that received the ICO credits, as explained this Tuesday Jose Carlos Garcia de Quevedopresident of the Official Credit Institute (ICO), during his speech at the III Finance Observatory organized by EL ESPAÑOL and Invertia.
In total, within the framework of the lines of guarantees of the Covid were made 1.2 million operations, of which 98% were for SMEs and the self-employed. García de Quevedo has described this program as “one of the most effective in the European Union”, as well as a good “exercise in public-private collaboration”.
Of the total, only 35% of the operations accepted the term extensions. “In other words, almost 70% of the companies that could have accepted, given the intensity of the pandemic, did not have to do so,” García de Quevedo clarified.
José Carlos García de Quevedo, President of the ICO
For the president, the balance of this program is “positive”, since it allowed “maintaining and protecting the business fabric.” And, as proof, the delinquency of these credits is “at fairly moderate levels, not to say low”.
“The guaranteed operations have practically come out of the grace period and are paying their quotas normally”, pointed out the president of ICO, for whom, looking to the future, “it seems that the first months of the year are pointing to a resilience of the Spanish and European economy better than expected”.
Regarding the line of guarantees for Ukraine, García de Quevedo explained that to date 1,200 million euros of financing have been mobilized in some 8,500 operations.
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