Background information

On 4 October 2022, the Order of the General Director of the National Development Agency INVEGA came into force in Lithuania to approve the scheme of the financial instrument "Direct loans to businesses affected by the war". The instrument is intended to reduce the impact of the crisis caused by the Russian Federation’s military aggression against Ukraine by providing working capital loans and investment loans to business entities, and to reduce the lack of investment loans in the Lithuanian economy caused by this crisis.

Content of measure

According to the scheme, working capital loans and investment loans are available for SMEs and large enterprises that have no or have terminated trade relations with Russia and are affected by Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. Loans are granted to business entities that meet at least one of the criteria below:

• the share of undertaking’s imports or exports with Ukraine and/or the share of imports with Russia and/or Belarus together made up at least 25% of the total share of the undertaking’s imports or exports (including with European Union countries) from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2021.
• undertaking costs of natural gas, heat and electricity services account for least 8% of the annual costs of the undertaking.
• the undertaking carries out activities included in Annex I to the to the European Commission's communication of 23 March 2022 No 2022/C 131 I/01 (adopted with effect from 28 October 2022 in a new version No. 2022/C 426/01).

The maximum loan amount shall be calculated in accordance with one of the following provisions:

• the loan amount must not exceed 15% of the borrower's average sales revenue of the last three financial years.
• the loan amount must not exceed 50% of the amount of the borrower's energy costs incurred in the last 12 months prior to the month of submitting the loan application.

The loan amount granted to a borrower or a group of companies cannot exceed €10 million. Loans shall be provided at a fixed annual interest rate. The interest rate applied to the loan cannot be lower than 5%.

Applications are accepted from 4 October 2022 to 10 November 2023. According to INVEGA, a total of €50 million has been allocated for this measure.

Use of measure

On 23 January 2023, there were a total of 66 applications filed for the total amount of €30.03 million, of which 12 have been approved, 36 rejected and 18 are being processed.

On 2 June 2023, 17 companies received loans. The total amount of loans was €9.05 million. The majority of companies are operating in the manufacturing sector, the most often in food and woodworking industry.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Other businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Public support service providers	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• No involvement
• Main level of involvement: Unknown

Involvement

No information available.

Views and reactions

No information available.

Sources

• 04 October 2022: the Order No B-210 of the General Director of INVEGA (www.invega.lt)
• 23 January 2023: Funds used by INVEGA (invega.lt)