The Iowa Small Business Administration says it had a five percent increase in loans for the fiscal year that just ended September 30th. Joe Folsom,the Iowa S-B-A district director, says they had 821 total loan approvals in the 2007 fiscal year, compared with 780 loan approvals in 2006. Folsom says the thing about the numbers that sticks out the most is the type of loans made.
He says loans to minorities increased from 53 to 89, while loans to rural areas increased from to 268 to 318. Folsom says all the loans are good news for the economy, especially one particular type of loan. Folsom says their 504 program gives a pretty good picture of what businesses are thinking for capital investment, as those are loans given specifically for long-term business investment. He says the increase in those loans would typically be expected to have a corresponding impact on the economy.
Folsom says they gave out just over 182 million dollars in loans in the last fiscal year.