According to the Secretary of State for the Economy, Mário João, the applications were submitted to the economic relief portal, until April 30, 2020, by economic operators in all the expected categories.
The BDA credit line, with a rate of nine percent, maturity of two years and a capital grace period of 180 days, aims to finance the purchase of the operators of commerce and distribution from national producers of products such as corn, cassava, wheat, rice, sugar, cabbage, potatoes, among others.
The initiative falls within the scope of the implementation of the economic relief measures approved by the Government, on 9 April, to "mitigate the impact of the negative effects" of the pandemic on the national economy.
"Credit lines have been made available to micro, small and medium-sized companies that aim to promote purchases of consumer goods produced domestically" and agricultural and fishery raw materials, said the minister.
The official, who was speaking at the opening of a consultation meeting with the agri-food distribution agents on the implementation of the economic relief measures, underlined that the applications cover all the expected categories.
Among the 1964 applications are 1016 from trade and distribution operators and 506 from small and medium-sized companies in the agricultural and fisheries sector. Family cooperatives submitted 139, the subsector of industry and commerce 223, and microcredit society 80.
"We are currently in the process of organizing credit with the aim of presenting the mechanism for granting credit for the credit line for the purchase of consumer goods produced in the country," he said.
Because, he stressed, "we understand that the role of the private sector is extremely important in order to mitigate the negative results caused by the covid-19 pandemic and to try to start a new growth cycle based on the consumption of national production".
The chairman of the board of directors of the National Institute for Support to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (INAPEM), Anito Agostinho, stated that the respective applications will be evaluated in the credit organization process.
"We have in this mechanism [credit granting] three players who are the operator, producers of national production and the intervention of the financial institution that will make this support feasible, in this case the BDA", he explained.
