The V.I. Economic Development Authority’s business loan program created 183 jobs in Fiscal Year 2010, dwarfing the numbers for 2009, according to the EDA.
The 183 jobs nominally created and maintained through those loans is more than twice the 72 jobs created by those programs the year before.
Its Small Business Development Agency (SBDA) and the Government Development Bank (GDB) received and reviewed 28 business loan applications from potential and existing small- and medium-sized business owners, according to a year-end statement from EDA.
Twenty-six of the 28 loan applications were approved in 2010, for loans totaling $1.3 million. That is $300,000 more than the $1 million lent in FY 2009, according to EDA.
EDA collected nearly $794,000 on SBDA and GDB loans in FY 2010, and $3.4 million since 2007.
The EDA is a semi-autonomous government agency tasked with promoting V.I. economic development. In addition to providing business lending, the agency integrates and unifies the functions of the: Economic Development Commission, Industrial Park Development Corp., Small Business Development Agency, Government Development Bank, and the Enterprise Zone Commission.
For more information on the EDA’s lending programs, contact the SBDA and GDB at (340) 714-1700 on St. Thomas or (340) 773-6499 on St. Croix.
