AZK: The guarantee to Technopolis is not state aid

The Council of the Agency for the Protection of Competition (AZK) determined that the Government's guarantee of 80 percent of the loan for the financing of the Technopolis Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center is not state aid. The opinion of AZK was requested by the Ministry of Science.

The loan of one million euros will be used for the pre-financing of the project that was approved by the EU within the framework of cross-border programs. The government gave a guarantee for 80 percent of the loan, that is, up to 800.000 euros at most.

"Issuing the guarantee does not refer to state aid, because Technopolis is not in difficulties, the guarantee is related to a specific financial transaction, for a fixed maximum amount and is limited in time to a maximum of 36 months, and the guarantee does not cover more than 80 percent of the outstanding loan, up to 800 euros at most", says the AZK decision.

The Ministry of Science explained in the AZK request that the total amount of the Technopolis budget for the newly approved EU projects amounts to 1.802.300 euros, of which a million euros will be refunded in order to realize those Technopolis projects without hindrance.

"The newly approved projects, 13 of them, for which pre-financing is necessary, will be implemented by Technopolis in a period of two to three years. Due to the fact that most projects last two years, that the EU refunds the money in a period of three years, the Government's guarantee is required for three years", it is stated in the decision of AZK.

It was explained that Tehnopolis estimated that the most favorable type of loan is an overdraft loan, due to the payment of interest on the withdrawn part of the money and in relation to the number of days of use of the loan. Loan offers to Technopolis were made by Crnogorska komercijalna banka, Lovćen and Prva banka.

AZK explained that in order to ensure that Technopolis actually bears part of the risk, special attention is focused on reducing the amount of the loan or financial obligation over time.

"So, because the repayment of the loan has started, the guaranteed amount must be proportionally reduced, in such a way that at any moment the guarantee does not cover more than 80 percent of the unpaid loan or financial obligation. If the financial obligation is fully covered by a state guarantee, the EC considers that the creditor is less motivated to correctly assess, insure and minimize the risk arising from lending, and it is of great importance to correctly assess the creditworthiness of the debtor. Such a risk assessment also does not always have to be carried out by the state guarantor, due to the lack of means to do so. The lack of motivation to minimize the risk of not repaying the loan can encourage creditors to contract loans with a higher commercial risk than usual, and in this way the amount of high-risk guarantees in the state portfolio can increase", states AZK.

In the decision, it is added that when deciding that the guarantee is not state aid, the Agency took into account the effective possibilities of the entrepreneur - beneficiary to obtain identical financial resources through access to the capital market, and that the source of financing would be available under conditions that would be acceptable to a private entity under normal circumstances. market economy conditions.

Loan at Prva banka

Last week, the government accepted Prva banka's offer to manage a million euro loan to Technopolis.

"The regular interest rate will be a fixed 3,6 percent per year, the loan processing fee is 0,5 percent, while in the case of untimely fulfillment of the loan obligations, the loan beneficiary will be obliged to pay the bank a late payment interest in the amount of 2 percent on a monthly basis. ", it is written in the Government's information.