The National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) and the Export-Import Bank of Japan are close to signing a loan of around 20 billion yen (53.6 billion Sk) to support small and medium-sized Slovak companies, the daily Národná Obroda reported on March 27.
"We are in the final stage of negotiations over the third loan from [Japan's] Exim bank and are talking about 20 billion yen," the paper quoted NBS governor Vladimír Masar as saying during a visit of leading Slovak government officials - includung Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar - to Japan on March 24-27. Masar said the maturity of the credit should be "around 12 years," but declined to disclose any information about the loan's rate, saying only that it should be "relatively favourable."
The NBS signed a 10 billion yen credit facility with the Japanese Exim Bank in April 1996. That loan held an interest rate of the Slovak discount rate - which currently stands at 8.8 percent - plus 3.25 percent and was also used to support small and medium-sized entreprises.
The funds were redistributed through a group of domestic commercial banks. It is still unclear whether this will also be the case for the latest credit or whether the NBS will chose a single commercial bank as the agent to distribute the funds.
