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USDA lends 3
Big Isle companies
$8.35 million,
saving 109 jobs

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Star-Bulletin HILO -- Three Big Island businesses have been granted a total of $8.35 million in loans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced.

The loans included $3.6 million to Unitek Solvent Services for solvent recycling and equipment leasing, $2.75 million to C.M.U. Associates to expand seafood processing operations and $2 million to the Big Island Abalone Corp. to expand its Kona processing facility.

"Together these loans will save 109 existing jobs and create 40 new jobs in an area suffering from higher-than-average unemployment," said U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.

The department's Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan program helped create or preserve 83,700 jobs nationwide in 1999, and is expected to do the same for 98,000 jobs this year.