Moratorium for Small and Medium Enterprises

Thanks to a close collaboration among the government, the bank system and the enterprises aimed at supporting the national economy, a new agreement for the SMEs’ credit has been signed by Corrado Passera (Economic Development, Infrastructures and Transportation Minister), Vittorio Grilli (Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance), the representatives of the Bankers’ Association and the industrial associations. The agreement follows the 3-August 2009’s and the 16-February 2011’s ones.

It provides for the following financial measures:

• Postponement of the installment payments;
• Extension of the financing;
• Support of the SMEs’ development and economic recovery.

The applications for the measure activation described in the agreement must be presented by the SMEs’ within 31 December 2012.

It must be underlined that the various moratorium agreements signed since 2009 permitted to suspend 260,000 loans for the SMEs’ with more than 15 billion Euros additional liquidity for the SMEs’ (http://www.dt.tesoro.it/en/progetti_speciali/moratoria/). A recent study by Bank of Italy showed the enterprises, which suspended the installments thanks to the moratorium, had been able to improve their ability to pay the debts.

For additional information, please refer to the document “New measures for SMEs’ credit” (Italian version only)(PDF, 248 KB).