Greater Anatolia Guarantee Facility (GAGF)

The Greater Anatolia Guarantee Facility Project (GAGF) developed in close collaboration with the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, was run by the European Investment Fund (EIF) as a specialised agency. The Project is implemented in a cooperative manner with Credit Guarantee Fund (CGF) and intermediary banks identified. With the loans provided by the intermediary banks, micro businesses and SMEs benefited from advantages such as longer terms, lower levels of collateral or interest rate reductions. With the GAGF Project a credit volume of 1 billion Euro was created for the use of thousands of SMEs.

The GAGF Project was designed under three main headings:

1. Guarantee for micro credits: The project offered a 13.5 million Euro counter-guarantee to CGF for micro credits. Thus, 4500 micro-businesses from these regions were provided with lending facilities for their operational and investment capital.

2. Assurance for SMEs: For the operational and investment capital needs of 10 thousand SMEs, 40.5 million Euro guarantee was provided through intermediary banks.

3. Capacity increase and publicity: The relevant skills and competencies -in other words, the institutional capacity- of stakeholders to be involved in the implementation of the GAGF Project were enhanced, and the project was promoted.

Micro-businesses with less than ten employees, and less than 2 million Euro annual turnover, SMEs with less than 250 employees and less than 50 million Euro annual turnover or less than 43 million Euro total asset benefited from loan procurement under the GAGF project. Micro-businesses and SMEs wishing to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the GAGF Project should already be established or be operating in one of those 43 aforementioned provinces. Additionally, micro-businesses and SMEs operating in other regions but willing to invest in the target region benefited from the opportunities offered by GAGF. By 31 December 2016, 810 million euro credit has been provided to 14.000 micro enterprise and SMEs, under this project.