Kazakhstan’s banks have successfully implemented a stabilization programme on the refinancing of SME’s. According to the results of the third tranche, about 2500 entrepreneurs have asked for state support.

Gabit Lesbekov, managing director of “Damu” entrepreneurship development fund:
- According to the primary conditions of this programme, it was planned to use 30% of the allocated money for new projects and 70% for refinancing. However, according to current reports, only 52% was used for refinancing. This means that we used 48% for new projects. The advantage of this programme consists of the fact that about 1000 members of the SME community received money for the implementation of their projects and another 1500 were able to refinance their loans and decrease the loan debt burden.

“Damu” fund officials said that the programme was implemented without outsiders and such banks as ATF and BTA refinanced the loans of local entrepreneurs using their own money. The BTA bank allocated 5 billion tenge for the support of SME’s.