Published: Tue, 11 August 2015
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Irish Small and Medium sized businesses (SMEs) interested in expansion are being urged by Seán Kelly MEP to seek out financing opportunities under the new €75 billion EU fund specifically designed to support small business.
“The EFSI will assist those projects that would otherwise not have been able to find investors due to the higher risk factor involved. Now, with the financial guarantee that EFSI provides, there will be €75 billion financing for our SMEs, which account for 99 percent of all active Irish businesses and over 70 percent of our workforce.
“It is a great opportunity for Irish companies to get that financial backing that just wasn’t available until now,” Seán Kelly said.
The so-called Juncker Plan aims to stimulate investment into strategic European projects by unlocking at least €315bn in additional investment over the next three years, backed by an EU guarantee of €16bn.
The Ireland South MEP says the outlook is positive for Irish business in 2015-2016: “Our economy truly bounced back in 2014 ensuring that we are again back among the EU’s top performers. Our growth and recovery can be attributed to increased exports and investment which grew by 12.6% and 11.3% respectively”.
“Ireland’s unemployment rate is expected to drop close to 9% in 2016 – down from over 11% in 2014 – which really shows the strides we have made in the past 12 months,” he said referring to the latest European Commission report on Ireland’s economic performance in 2014.
