Under an annex to the contract, banks will grant enterprises loans of HRK 35,000 to 200,000 for small projects for which it was hard to get subsidies, Vukelic said.
About HRK 100 million is expected to be provided through the micro-loan programme, or about HRK 4.7 million per county. The interest rate is 7 per cent, but the Ministry and the counties will each subsidise 1 per cent, so that the interest rate for the end user will be 5 per cent.
Presenting the results so far achieved in the implementation of the Local Development Projects programme, Vukelic said that 3,778 loans worth over HRK 4.06 billion had been granted since 2004.
In the last three years 4,500 companies and 5,000 small business have been established, with about 70,000 new jobs, he added.
Vukelic said he expected the remaining three counties (Sisak, Osijek and Istria) to sign the contracts within the next few days.