Agriculture, Covid-19, Estonia, Financial Services, Legislation, Markets and Companies

The acceptance of applications is discontinued because the budget of the measure has been depleted. The issuance of loan underwritings continues.

In the second half of May, various crisis measures were made available to the agricultural, food and rural sectors using funds from the supplementary budget to alleviate the economic impacts from the spread of the coronavirus and help the sector exit the crisis as quickly as possible.

As part of the measures, loans as a tool to mitigate the impacts related to the spread of  coronavirus were issued in the sum of 100 million euros, loan underwritings in the sum of 50 million euros and finance leases for farmland in the sum of 50 million euros.

Minister of Rural Affairs Arvo Aller said that business operators active in rural areas actively used the possibilities offered by the Rural Development Foundation during the summer months, in order to preserve their liquidity and make necessary investments to improve the businesses'  ability to better handle crises in the future.

"Big interest towards the loans offered by the Rural Development Foundation demonstrates that it is difficult for business operators in the agricultural and food sectors and rural business operators to raise financing; this problem has been further aggravated by the spread of COVID-19," the minister said.

While no new applications will be accepted, the processing of the applications already filed will continue until the end of the year.