On November 26, 2021, KfW’s Director for Southeast Europe and Turkey, Dr. Klaus Müller and the Executive Director of Albanian Development Guarantee Foundation (ADGF), Mr. Bajram Korsita signed the financing agreement for a grant of 6 million Euro made available by the German Government, through the German Development Bank, KfW. These funds will act as a top-up of COVID-19 funding contributed to ADGF in 2020 at the amount of 6.7 million Euro, and will be used for private sector support to counter the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grant will be used to allow the ADGF to further expand its support to the Albanian businesses recovering from the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The use of this contribution will be focused on supporting start-ups, i.e., MSMEs that have been registered for less than 24 months, since this target group faces particular challenges to access financing. This “Start-up Window” will include grant-financed technical assistance (TA) for entrepreneurs and for partner financial institutions to unlock access to start-up financing.

Currently, ADGF partners with 6 local banks as well as 6 non-bank financial institutions. Since its establishment, ADGF has guaranteed a total number of 8,200 loans for a total amount of 47 million Euro. These loans have contributed to the creation of approximately 5,500 new jobs while preserving around 8,800 existing ones.