Within the next week it is expected to be submitted by the country tthe request for the 4th tranche of loans from the Recovery Fund, amounting to 2.3 billion euros.

At the same time, the request for the fourth installment tof grants, amounting to 1 billion eurosis set in time, as announced at a press conference by the Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance, Nikos Papathanasis, for May.

As the deputy minister mentioned, the goal is for Greece to continue to be in the first positions in the EU in terms of absorbing European resources, which is a crucial factor for achieving the development goal. He added that this year the country will have multiple growth compared to the European average.

Mr. Papathanasis said that “Greece has met 23% of the Recovery Fund milestones, while the European average is 17%. We have still received 41% of the available funds, while the European average is 30%». Two of the total of 20 milestones remain to be met in order to submit the request for the 4th grant installment in May.

The two pending milestonesaccording to the commander of the special coordination service of the Recovery Fund Orestis Kavalakis, is the approval of at least 9,600 applications in the energy saving programs for businesses (I save by doing business, switch device for business), and the awarding of the Double Redevelopment contract by the municipality of Athens.

The deputy minister also announced then activation of the amount of 500 million euros from the loans of the Recovery Fund, which will be directed to the SME lending guarantee program. The specific program will provide guarantees of up to 70% of the requested funding amount and will be directed to three programs managed by the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

According to Mr. Papathanasis, now together with the Entrepreneurship Fund III there will be two programs to support mainly small and medium enterprises for the provision of business loans. In order to support small and medium entrepreneurship and expand the perimeter of businesses that have access to bank loans.