Econostrum | Economic News in the Mediterranean
     

Proparco and UIB join forces to support Tunisian entrepreneurs


Written by Eric Apim on Wednesday, December 8th 2021 à 17:50 | Read 477 times



The teams of Proparco and UIB will facilitate the financing of SMEs (photo: Proparco)
The teams of Proparco and UIB will facilitate the financing of SMEs (photo: Proparco)
TUNISIA / FRANCE. On Wednesday 8 December 2021, Proparco granted an exceptional €1 million (3.25 million Tunisian dinars) guarantee to the Union Internationale des Banques (UIB). It will enable the Tunisian bank with 145 branches belonging to the Société Générale group since 2002 to grant loans 80% guaranteed by the subsidiary of the French Development Agency (AFD) group dedicated to the private sector to small and medium-sized Tunisian companies.

This guarantee will be triggered, after examination of the financing requests by UIB, for any company with less than 250 employees affected by the health crisis and its economic consequences. The device comes to reinforce the offer "exceptional credits covid-19" set up by the Tunisian bank at the beginning of the pandemic. Tpe and Pme will be able to be granted loans from twelve to sixty months. "This new guarantee agreement is perfectly in line with UIB's commitment to Tunisian companies since the beginning of the crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. We have and continue to mobilize all the necessary energies to help our clients get through this crisis and relaunch their activities", underlines Raoul Labbé de la Genardière, UIB's General Manager.

 

​A response adapted to the needs of Tunisian entrepreneurs

The agreement between the two partners, who have been linked for several years - and in particular with the signing in 2018 of technical support from Proparco to enable UIB to organise specific training for entrepreneurs in several Tunisian cities - is part of the new Resilience component (€1bn) of the French ChooseAfrica initiative. Launched in November 2020 to help start-ups, VSEs and SMEs on the African continent, it has a budget of €3.5bn.

"This guarantee proposed thanks to the support of the French government will make it possible to provide an appropriate response to the needs of Tunisian entrepreneurs affected by the crisis", comments Guillaume Barberousse, head of Proparco's Banking and Financial Markets Division.

Created in 1964, UIB offers a full range of services to all types of clients: individuals, professionals, SMEs, large companies and institutions. It offers financial products dedicated to SMEs.



   Partners









About Econostrum.info Econostrum.info is an independent media that deals with the daily economic news of the countries bordering the Mediterranean. Economic cooperation, business news by sector (Industry, Services, Transport, Environment, Society/Institutions), thematic files, airport news, airlines and shipping companies (new destinations)... are treated and analysed by a team of journalists present in the Mediterranean basin. Subscribe to Econostrum.info To be the first to know, with unlimited access to all articles. To receive the weekly newsletters and special newsletters sent as soon as our files are published. Automatically renewable subscription, but the reader keeps control of it or yearly subscription. For individuals or professionals...