The chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee Subcommittee for Examining the Effects of the Financial Crisis on Small Businesses, MK Ruhama Avraham (Likud), is calling on the Ministry of Finance to recruit one or more banks to the loan fund for small businesses in distress, in order to expedite the approval of loan applications. The purpose is to eliminate as soon as possible the bottleneck delaying approval of loan applications.
The committee was told that only 115 loan applications, amounting to NIS37m (US$8.4m), or an average of NIS320,000 (US$72,859) per loan, had been approved in the fund's first three months of operation. In contrast, the previous fund approved 100 loans amounting to NIS20m (US$4.5m) during its 14-month lifespan. Of the 1,664 companies that have contacted the new fund, 826 filed applications for loans.
