SMALL SCALE INDUSTRY

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The Small Scale Enterprise Project will provide term resources for small-scale enterprise investment projects, mainly in the manufacturing sector but also including all productive, commercial and service activities, except agriculture. It will help finance the foreign exchange cost of up to 1,500 subprojects with an estimated total cost of US$50 million and will help to create up to 10,000 new jobs. The project will also support Government efforts to eliminate subsidies and to standardize interest rates for term lending to SSEs. In addition, it will strengthen the term lending system for SSEs by involving a large number of financial intermediaries, thus promoting competition, better service and a broader regional distribution of resources. Finally, the loan will help to finance a technical assistance program within COFIDE to train loan officers of the participating intermediaries to better meet the special needs of their SSE clients and to further develop COFIDE's own staff.