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SBA, CDA signs loan pact for additional Microloan money
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Posted on Nov 15 2000
The United States Small Business Administration and the Commonwealth Development Authority will today execute loan closing documents for additional funds earmarked for the Microloan Program.
SBA-Guam legal counsel Robert Pearson will sign the documents for $420,000 in additional funds to expand the Microloan Program with CDA Board Chair John S. Tenorio and Executive Director Marylou S. Ada.
The additional funds would facilitate the expansion of the highly-successful Microloan Program as it will allow the agency to replenish its depleting portfolio for small-scale investors in the Northern Marianas.
The program was launched in the CNMI late last year, making CDA the first organization in the Western Pacific to become an SBA Microlender.
The government’s premier lending agency is likely to upgrade the maximum amount of money that can be lent out under the Microloan Program from $25,000 to $75,000 now that SBA okayed the release of the requested additional funding.
The Microloan Program has provided a motivation for the local residents to start up a small business of their own. The number of applicants for the program has tremendously increased since its introduction into the island late last year.
Over $300,000 worth of credit packages have already been approved by the government’s lone lending agency since the Microloan Program was introduced to help stimulate the Commonwealth’s slumping economy by assisting small businessmen obtain fresh and additional capital for either new or existing businesses.
Under the program, small businesses can obtain as much as $25,000 in fresh loans. CDA is the first microlender in the Western Pacific although talks are already underway for the SBA to extend the program in other Micronesian islands.
The Microloan Program is expected to offshoot the slowdown in lending activities undertaken by private commercial banks due to economic downturn which virtually dampened capabilities by borrowers to repay loans. (Aldwin R. Fajardo)
