Agreement to promote the Basque audiovisual industry

Audiovisual SGR and Elkargi SGR have reached an agreement so that the more than 130 Basque production companies can finance their audiovisual projects under better conditions.

Susana Serrano, general director of Audiovisual SGR and the CEO of Elkargi SGR, Pedro Oyarzabal, signed an agreement this morning in San Sebastián to promote the Basque audiovisual industry.

With the signing of this agreement between the guarantor entity specialized in the audiovisual sector and the leading guarantor entity in financing for SMEs, Basque companies in the audiovisual industry will see the maximum amount of guarantees to finance their projects increased.
For the president of IBAIA, the Association of independent audiovisual production companies of the Basque Country and president, in turn, of FAPAE, the Confederation that brings together practically all of the film and television production companies in Spain, Joxe Portela, who has endorsed this agreement with his presence, "the collaboration between Audiovisual SGR and Elkargi SGR is a lifeline for the sector, which will facilitate access to credit and speed up the processing of applications."

Already during the recent celebration of the 61st edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival, FAPAE, in the words of its president Joxe Portela, recalled that the “turnover of audiovisual production during 2012 had fallen by over 15%” and “new financing measures were requested to face the difficult situation that audiovisual production is going through in Spain, taking into account, in addition, that the default rate of companies in the audiovisual sector is “approximately 3% compared to 12% for the banks.”

This agreement represents a boost to the Basque and Basque audiovisual industry, and is in line with the work that Elkargi SGR, as a financial entity with direct links to companies, has been developing for more than a decade for the use and normalization of Basque in the socio-economic field.

It should also be noted that Audiovisual SGR has been, since 2006, the first specific Spanish financial entity for this sector and that thanks to the more than 700 guarantees granted for an amount greater than 150 million euros, films have been produced with the participation of Basque companies such as Zipi and Zape, Three Too Many Weddings, Bypass, Nobody's Shadow and Pagafantas, among others, in addition to other relevant films such as Celda 211, Atraco, Chico&Rita and series of the likes of Great Hotel o Spain. Now, with the endorsement of Elkargi SGR, a leading financial institution in guarantees for SMEs, this possibility is expanded. Not in vain, the audiovisual industry in Euskadi, which manages around 70 million euros annually and employs almost a thousand employees, will now be able to benefit from the joint support of Audiovisual SGR and Elkargi SGR.