“Through its network of banks in Croatia, Albania, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, the Intesa Sanpaolo Group intends to grant loans amounting to a billion euros to small and medium enterprises in the Western Balkans involved in the incentive,” stated Ignacio Jaquotot, Head of the International Subsidiary Banks Division within the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, during the international conference “Support to local enterprises and small and medium enterprises with the Chinese initiative One Belt – One Road in the Southeast Europe” organised by the Central European Initiative (CEI) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The program of the “One Belt – One Road” (“The New Silk Road”) initiative is a real opportunity for the development of the Balkan countries which are vivid examples of the western entry to the New Silk Road considering the program’s focus on the improvement of the infrastructural gap toward the West through significant investments whose worth is estimated to be about $11 billion, and which are planned for the coming decades.