NORTH MACEDONIA
| Title | Small and Medium Size Enterprise Development |
| Type of project | Sustainable Economic Development |
| Client | Ministry of Economy |
| Origin of funding | European Commission - EuropeAid, Brussels, Belgium |
| Duration | 01/2005 - 01/2006 |
The project promoted economic development through investment in the SME’s access to financial and non-financial services.
The project supported the development and introduction of appropriate lending policies and practices in order to allow banks to sustainably increase their SME lending activities.
The project also provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Economy and the national SME support infrastructure with emphasis on capacity building, development and introduction of measures to support the enterprises.
The activities included:
- Design of an appropriate lending and analysis methodology that allows the commercial banks to substantially increase their SME lending activities in a sustainable manner;
- Training loan officers and credit managers in SME finance, sales and marketing directed to SMEs;
- Development of an incentive scheme for the loan officers to support sustainable SME lending;
- Implementation of a lending programme based on the improved lending methodology in the selected branches of the commercial banks currently operating in the country.