The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Egypt’s Banque Misr have signed a €425 million credit line agreement in order to support local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) affected by the pandemic.

The agreement is part of the first tranche of a €750 million credit line that was approved by EIB back in October 2020, which will provide six-year loans to support SMEs against the pandemic’s repercussions, with the second tranche to be signed in early 2022.

Vice Chairperson of Banque Misr, Akef El Maghraby, and Director of the EIB operations in the European region, Flavia Palanza, signed the agreement on Wednesday.

The new agreement brings the total amount of EIB’s loans to Banque Misr to nearly €2b billion as the third loan agreement between EIB and Banque Misr, with previous two agreements amounting to €500m each.

Banque Misr is one of the first banks that committed to achieving the Central Bank of Egypt’s directives to increase each bank’s financing portfolio to 23.51 percent of the bank’s credit before January 2020.