Airbus - grant verses loans

If the UK Government is lending Airbus £340 million through a repayable loan, why on earth did the Welsh Assembly Government have to give out £28 million in a cash grant as well?

Surely, the £28 million - which represents around 10 per cent of WAG's total business support fund - could easily have been added to the loan amount given out by Lord Mandelson's department?

This money could then have been used to support other businesses directly or given to an organisation such as Finance Wales to ensure that loans are made available to Welsh SMEs at a time when they need it the most.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Good question.

I'd assumed that both the big numbers and the loan / grant split were negociated together.
Clearly any loans have an affect on the Balance Sheet for EADS.

David Jones
Cardiff

August 26, 2009 11:10 am

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