The Government will open a new line of ICO credits and will postpone maturities

The Government will open a new line of ICO credits and will postpone maturities


The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, together with the Ministers of Economy, Nadia Calviño, and the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero. / ef

The Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, opens the door to extend the door to extend the grace periods of publicly guaranteed loans

Clara Dawn

The pressure from carriers has forced the Government to make a move in the face of growing social discontent and fear of widespread shortages. In addition to bringing forward the key meeting with the National Committee for Road Transport to tomorrow, the economic vice president, Nadia Calviño, has also advanced this Wednesday some of the measures that will be included in the National Plan that the Government is finalizing and that will present the full next January 29.

Specifically, this shock plan will include a new line of guarantees from the Official Credit Institute (ICO) for companies and the self-employed affected by the pandemic, in addition to a new postponement in the expiration of loans guaranteed by the State that were already subscribed, many of them derived from the pandemic.

During her speech at the plenary session to control the Government, the Minister of the Economy also explained that the Executive is working with the Bank of Spain to also analyze the possibility of extending the grace periods for publicly guaranteed loans.

The measure would be a complete oxygen balloon for the sectors most affected by the current situation. Many of them, especially smaller companies, had already been drowned by the impact of the pandemic. And now they found themselves in the difficult situation of having to repay the credits received months ago, chaining the health crisis with the energy crisis.

It was in March 2020, in the midst of the outbreak of the coronavirus, when the Government launched these public guarantees of up to 100,000 million euros to encourage credit among the companies most affected by the crisis. The grace period (when only interest is paid, and not the principal) was extended from one to two years in November of that year, with which it would be from now on when it would be up to those who had not met their financial obligations. done already

According to data compiled by the ICO, as of February 28, 2022, together the Liquidity and Investment Guarantee Lines have deployed guarantees amounting to 103.77 million euros that have made it possible to mobilize 136,360 million euros in financing towards the productive fabric in 1,156,933 operations, of which more than 98% have been subscribed by SMEs and the self-employed

Calviño has also taken advantage of his speech to explain that, in the specific case of carriers, the Government is "working hard to provide them with effective solutions" and that these "do not go through a reduction in VAT or fuel taxes."

In terms of energy, Calviño has recognized that the measures adopted so far "are not enough" and that given the rise in gas "the priority has to be to decouple" its price from the wholesale electricity market.



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