The money will be used for the financing of cutting-edge technologies,

tools and production lines, Unior said in a press release on

Wednesday.

Unior chairman Gorazd Korošec said the car industry had

been hit hard by the crisis, but sales have nevertheless returned to

pre-crisis levels.

Unior posted a net profit of EUR 1.3m for 2011 on

sales that rose 23% to EUR 155m.

The loan was granted as part of a

SID bank programme for the financing of technological and R&D

projects.

The programme is funded with a EUR 100m loan from the

European Investment Bank (EIB) and EUR 50m in budget funds.

This

combination allows SID to offer low interest, the bank's chairman Sibil

Svilan was quoted as saying.