Turkey’s Garanti Bank has received a credit of $147.8 million from the European Investment Bank, or EIB, to finance small- and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, according to an e-mailed statement from the bank Monday. The credit, which has a maturity of 12 years, will be used to finance investment and operation credits that will be offered to businesses that have less than 500 employees. With this latest credit, Garanti has received $700 million in foreign funds to finance small companies. “Even in the toughest days of the global credit crunch, we were not seeing any problems in creating financing for small- and medium-sized enterprises,” said Tolga Egemen, deputy managing director of Garanti. “A few days after we received a credit from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, we offered this new credit line to the service of our SMEs. As the bank that lends most to SMEs, we are fortifying our consistent support for businesses. The long-term profile of our foreign resource will help lengthen the maturities of SME credits in our portfolio. We will continue to support the productive forces of our country,” Egemen said. Garanti last year received 200 million euros in credit from the EIB to be used by SMEs. This previous securitized credit has a maturity of 10 years. The EIB was created by the Treaty of Rome in 1958 as the long-term lending bank of the European Union. The task of the bank is to contribute toward the integration, balanced development and economic and social cohesion of EU member states.