The Vice-President of the Government revealed that the overall amount of the funding allocated under various support lines for companies already reaches 386 million Euros. This amount is expected to be largely overcome as there are some support lines whose application deadline only ends in June.

"This result evidences the companies' adherence to the measures we have implemented to enable their access to bank funding, credit restructuring and maintenance of operation and jobs," stated Sérgio Ávila.

Making an assessment of companies' adherence to the main support lines, the Vice-President revealed that "617 applications were approved with a global investment of 25.4 million Euros under the Line of Credit 'Azores Invest' while the Line of Credit 'Azores Invest II' registered a total of 767 applications, corresponding to an overall investment of 38 million Euros."

Moreover, the support lines for credit restructuring and liquidity registered a total of 966 applications; they have been able to support the restructuring of funding in the amount of 299.1 million Euros. According to Sérgio Ávila, "this is undoubtedly a substantial support to the sustainability of many companies with a considerable impact on the maintenance of jobs."

Until the last day of March, 2602 companies have applied for the eight lines of credit that were created by the Regional Government to support bank debt restructuring and fund business operations, such as the case of the line of credit "Azores Invest II."

This line of credit assures financial support up to 25,000 for micro companies, 50,000 Euros for small companies and 300,000 Euros for medium and large companies. The repayment deadlines may go up to eight years with a grace period up to 18 months.

The bank debt restructuring and liquidity support line for Azorean companies is a line of credit that allows companies to restructure funding already allocated by extending the deadlines for the repayment of loans and assuring a grace period from 12 to 24 month. Under this measure, banks are required to grant new funding to companies, which will simultaneously boost their liquidity.

This line of credit allows the refunding of companies up to a total amount of 100 million Euros. The Government will assume 75% of the financial burden with the bank spread up to a maximum interest rate bonus of 4.5 percentage points; this support will be limited to the financial burden incurred by the company in the last 45 months with the restructuring of bank funding.

 In addition, banks are required to grant new funding to companies. The stipulated amount of credit to be granted will be of 25,000 Euros for micro companies and 50,000 Euros for small companies. In the remaining cases, the minimum amount to be allocated should correspond to 10% of the restructuring process, which may go up to 300,000 Euros.