Minister of International Cooperation Rania Mashat launched a joint coordinatory cooperation platform for micro-businesses with the participation of officials from the Central Bank of Egypt, the Financial Regulatory Authority, the Egyptian Microfinance Federation and i-Score.
She underlined the importance of small businesses as a catalyst for pushing forward the Egyptian economy to realize development, create jobs and promote the culture of free business.
The ministry offered – through its development partners – a total of $3.2 billion funding for the private sector over the past year.
She said the platform is meant to open vistas of cooperation among governmental bodies, private sector and multilateral and bilateral development partners in various domains.
She added that this falls within the framework of state efforts to promote development in various scores, adding that small, medium and micro enterprises are one of the mainstays for sustainable development.
Meanwhile, Undersecretary of the Central Bank of Egypt Governor Mai Abul Naga said the CBE contributed to realize an unprecedented leap in financing micro industry, upping the portfolio of this sector to LE 47 billion in December 2020 against LE 6.4 billion in December 2016.
She referred to the initiatives launched by CBE to promote this sector, including setting a 25 percent of the banks’ insurance portfolios to fund small, medium and micro projects.
For her part, head of the Egyptian Microfinance Federation Mona Dhul-Faqqar said the micro-financing law which was issued in 2014 represents a quantum leap in activating this sector.
She noted that the federation targeted in 2016 about 10 million low-income families.
Meanwhile, Elena Banova, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Cairo, said small, medium and micro enterprises secure up to 60-70 percent of jobs in the economic field.
She said the door is open for cooperation with micro-financing associations in view of the UN’s interest in this score.
Egypt Today
