French Polynesia Makes $7M Bet To Boost Small Business
(Tahitipresse)
The Tong Sang government has provided a 550 million French Pacific franc (US$6.9 million/4.6 million Euros) subsidy to SOFIDEP aimed at reviving capital investment activity for small and average size businesses.
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SOFIDEP (the French Polynesia Development Financing Company) has helped finance 173 equity loan projects worth 1.6 billion French Pacific francs (US$20 million/€13.4 million) since its creation in 1999. That is an average of 9.6 million French Pacific francs (US$120,000/€80,448) per project.
SOFIDEP's role is to invest alongside banks that are concerned about being the only ones to finance projects considered risky even though they might be economically viable, Mairai Sun, French Polynesia's minister of industry, very small, small and average businesses said in a media communiqué Tuesday.
The subsidy agreement was signed Tuesday by French Polynesia President Gaston Tong Sang, Sun and Pierre Fontaine, the head of SOFIDEP.
According to the Sun communiqué, SOFIDEP's capital investment role has never been put to use since 1999. The semi-private company was initially created as part of an economic restructuring effort for
SOFIDEP has only made two capital investments since 1999. The total amount was 200 million French Pacific francs (US$2.5 million/€1.68m), the government communiqué said.
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